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POST NORMAN BRITAIN: 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES UPON THE HISTORY OF 
ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY IIT. 
TO THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 


BY 


Piao invenG. HEWLETT. 


PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF 
THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION 
APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING 
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, 


LONDON : 
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, 
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C. ; 


43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.; 
26, ST. GEORGE’S PLACE, HYDE PARK CORNER, S.W. 


BRIGHTON: 135, NORTH STREET. 
New York: E. & J. B. YOUNG & Co. 
1886, 


i aad ae 


PREFACE, 


He volumes comprising the series published under 


the title of “ Early Britain” furnish a brief analytical 
and historical account of the chief racial elements 
which successively became blended in the mental and 
physical constitution ‘of the English people down to 
the close of the Norman:period. The present volume 


is intended to supplement the series by a sketch of the 
various influences derived, from foreign sources which 
subsequently contributed to modify and develope 


our national character, down to the period when the 
modern history of England may be said to begin. 
The contributions which this survey embraces com- 
prise not only the accession of new racial elements 
by occasional. immigrations, but such influences of 
political, religious, moral, and intellectual force as 
have become. permanently absorbed into the organism 
of the nation, or have assisted to promote its historical 
growth. . The several impulses given to our progress 


in literature, philosophy, science, the arts, commerce, 


colonisation, ‘invention, and industry come directly 
within. its scope: But. the external influence thus 
exercised has not always been direct. In more than 
one instance it proceeded from a hostile source, and 
was only converted into a beneficent agency by dint 


of the reflex action which it excited. The largeness — 


of the debt to foreign aids which is disclosed by this 
investigation may seem at first sight to detract from 
the originality of our native genius, but ought rather 


B 2 


QNUS 


4 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


to be regarded as measuring the assimilative power 
inherent in it. As the period to which this retrospect 
is confined was anterior to the union of the three 
kingdoms, it has been necessary to treat both Scotland 
and Ireland as foreign countries, and to take into 
account only so much of their history as has concerned 
that of England. 

The limited scale of the work has rendered many 
omissions unavoidable, and allowed no more than a 
cursory glance at topics of interest and importance 
which deserved ample consideration. I am bound 
to acknowledge my special obligation to Green’s 
“History of the English People” for its masterly 
outline of the national annals in relation to the 
organic growth of our free institutions, which I have 
adopted as a groundwork of political narrative; to 
the excellent summaries of facts connected with the 
progress of English commerce, art, and industry 
contained in Macfarlane’s “ Pictorial History of Eng- 
land”; to the literary histories of Hallam and Shaw, 
and Professor Morley’s ‘‘ First Sketch of English 
Literature ” ; to Walpole’s ‘‘ Anecdotes of Painting,” 
and to Dr. Smiles’s exhaustive work on “The 
Huguenots.” ‘To the numerous original authorities 
and books of reference which I have had occasion to 
consult I must be content with a general acknowledg- 
ment of indebtedness. To my friend Mr. Walter 
Tregellas I owe several valuable suggestions which 
have helped to make this compilation, with all its 
shortcomings, less incomplete than it would otherwise 
have been. 


1g hy 6 Sed sb 
September, 1886. 


BONG LeKSNeTSS; 


CHARTER I. 


Foreign influences upon English history during the 
thirteenth century a ve ‘ Page 


CHAPTER iT: 


Foreign influences during the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries to the accession of Henry VII. 


CHAPTER III. 


Foreign influences during the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries from the accession of Henry VII. to the 
death of Henry VIII. 


CHAPTER. IV. 


Foreign influences upon political history during the 
sixteenth century (from the accession of Edward VI. 
to the death of Mary) 


CHAPTER Vv. 


Foreign influences upon political history during the reign 
of Elizabeth 


26 


47 


75 


92 


6 ‘POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


CHAPTER: Vi. 


Miscellaneous foreign influences from the accession of 
Edward VI. to the death of Elizabeth sy Wh SG 27 


CHAPTER .VIE 


Foreign influences on pela pee: during the reign of 
Hames fa. A cas os ae ie ve 154 


CHAPTER Vie. 


Foreign influences on political history from the accession 
of Charles I. to the outbreak of the Civil War ‘4 176 


CHAPTER IX. 


F oreign influences on political history from the eaten of - 


the Civil War to the Restoration and wa tesvths 206 
CHAPTER? 
Miscellaneous foreign influences from ‘the accession of 
James I. to the Restoration ~ <7, © 7.0.4, ey pa 220 


CHAPTE Raa 


Foreign influences upon political history from the Restora- 
tion to the Revolution, 1660 to 1688... 4... apne 5d 


CHAP TER Sei 


Miscellaneous foreign influences from the Restoration to 
the Revolution” 4;. 2 dP eae i ae sie 290 


POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 
FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 


COAL EER | I. 


Foreign influences upon English history during the thirteenth 
century. 


THE independent ‘national existence of England, 
subsequent to the Conquest, dates from the loss by 
John of his Norman possessions, consummated by 
the formal cession of them to the French King, 
made by Henry III., in 1259. Hitherto England 
had been little more than an appanage of Normandy; 
henceforth it was self-centred and uncontrolled. 
The blending of the several races which had settled 
on its soil into one common nationality, of Celts, 
Romans, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Normans 
into Englishmen, was now an accomplished fact. 
Though Norman-French still continued to be the 
spoken language of the Court and the nobility, and 
Latin the written language of officials, lawyers, and 
Churchmen, the English tongue, Teutonic: in sub- 
stance and structure, was alone ‘‘ understanded of 
the people.” That its prevalence had become gene- 
rally recognised by the middle of the century is 


8 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


attested by the issue of a circular Royal Pro- 
clamation, addressed to the chief towns of the realm 
in 1258, ordaining the observance of the “ Provisions 
of Oxford.” 

The war between John and his barons, which had 
resulted in their establishment of a fixed barrier to 
the despotic power of the Crown, had been mainly 
waged in the interest of the feudal landowners, but 
the benefits which they won for themselves were 
secured to all classes in the nation. ‘The growth of 
a common bond of patriotic feeling, obvious traces 
of which are to be found in the memorials of this 
century, was the natural consequence of such par- 
ticipation. It was greatly stimulated by the national 
policy steadily pursued by Hubert de Burgh, the 
Justiciary, and Stephen Langton, Archbishop of 
Canterbury, who practically governed the kingdom 
during the nonage of Henry III.; the firmness with 
which they enforced the confirmation and maintained 
the validity of the Great Charter, resisted the en- 
croachments of the Papacy, and discouraged the 
ambition of the young King to recover his Norman 
possessions. Both had deserved well of the country 
during the recent constitutional crisis; the Justiciary 
by the courage with which, while keeping clear of 
complicity in John’s misrule, he opposed the mis- 
taken course of the barons, who sought to set up a 
foreign prince in his stead, and frustrated its sue- 
cessful issue by the tenacious defence of Dover ; the 
Archbishop, by the skill with which he had mediated 
between the barons and the Pope, from whom, at the 
close of the struggle, he obtained a pledge that no 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. g 


successor to the Legate Pandulf should be sent to 
England during his lifetime. This last service was 
vividly recalled to men’s minds by the renewal of 
Papal aggression, which succeeded his death in 1228. 

Before Gregory IX. would consent to ratify the 
appointment of a new primate, an “aid” was 
demanded from the realm, and when the King’s pro- 
posal to levy it on the lay fiefs was refused by the 
barons, the Pope enforced the exaction of a tenth 
upon the goods of the clergy under the threat of ex- 
communication. This attack upon the hberties of the 
national Church, followed by his wholesale appoint- 
ment of Italian priests to vacant English benefices, 
in disregard of private nghts of patronage, led toa 
violent outbreak of popular anger in 1231, which for 
a time stemmed the tide of usurpation. The Papal 
tithe-collectors were maltreated, the tithes taken 
from them and given to the poor. ‘The evidence of 
organisation among the rioters, and the real or sup- 
posed countenance given to their proceedings by the 
Justiciary, brought upon him the displeasure of the 
Pope, and precipitated his fall from power in 1232. 
The national sympathy with his policy found ex- 
pression in the words of the smith of Brentwood, 
who, when de Burgh was dragged from the sanctuary 
to which he had fled, sturdily refused to “put irons 
on the man who freed England from the stranger.” 
But the King had long been waiting for an opportunity 
to be rid of so masterful a minister, and no sooner 
was this end accomplished, than he proceeded to 
carry out his own policy of entrusting the highest 
offices of the State either to foreigners, or to English- 


Io POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


men of humble position, who were alike dependent 
on his favour and obsequious to his will. 

His first act was to confer chief authority upon 
Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, a Poitevin, 
who was odious to the nation as the unscrupulous 
tool of John. At his suggestion, a multitude of 
Poitevin and Breton office-seekers swarmed into the 
country, and were quickly provided with military 
and civil posts of rank and influence. Their mal- 
administration and rapacity provoked a revolt of the 
barons, and though this was suppressed, and the con- 
fiscated estates of the rebels were recklessly conferred 
upon the foreigners, the disaffection of the country 
became so serious, that the Church at last intervened. 
Under pressure of a threat of excommunication by 
the Primate, Edmund Rich, Henry consented to 
dismiss the Poitevins in 1233. But the relief was. 
short-lived. The relations of Eleanor of Provence, 
who became Henry’s Queen in 1236, soon succeeded 
in absorbing the most important dignities and the 
wealthiest domains of the Crown. One of her uncles, 
Peter, Count of Savoy, was enriched with the honours 
of Richmond and Hastings, besides other possessions. 
Another uncle, Boniface, was appointed to the vacant 
primacy. Other members of the family received 
large grants of land, or money, from the weak and 
lavish King. ‘The children of his mother, Isabella, 
by her second husband, the Count of la Marche, 
were sent over to England for a share of the plunder, 
and were treated with equal profuseness. Aymer de 
Valence was made Bishop of Winchester, William 
was created Earl of Pembroke. Several: of. these 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. II 


favourites having obtained the custody and marriage 
of young barons, who were wards of the Crown, 
reaped a rich harvest from the proceeds of their 
estates during their nonage ; and before they attained 
majority wedded them to foreign ladies, who had 
come over in search of husbands. ‘There can be no 
doubt that these alliances, which affected the blood 
of some of the oldest and noblest families in the 
kingdom, were followed by frequent unions between 
the male and female retainers of the houses thus 
connected. To what extent this immigration pro- 
ceeded cannot be ascertained, but it was unquestion- 
ably very large. The official registers of royal grants, 
fea. Patent “and “Charter” Rolls of: Chancery, 
are crowded with examples of the prodigality with 
which Henry squandered the wealth of England 
upon his foreign relatives and their dependants. To 
the scandalous abuse of the powers entrusted to 
them, which many of these unworthy recipients of 
his bounty openly committed, the contemporary 
chroniclers bear abundant witness. A few prominent 
individuals among the number who made themselves 
specially obnoxious were eventually forced, by popular 
indignation, to quit the realm, but there is no reason 
to doubt that the majority remained. 

Unwelcome as these intruders were to the nation, 
and severely as it suffered for a long time from their 
greed of gain, their contempt of law and order, and 
their subservience to the despotism of the Crown, the 
mischief thereby wrought was happily transient, while 
the accession of fresh racial elements which their 
intermarriage with English families involved, must 


12 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


be considered a permanent benefit. ~In two or three 
notable instances the alien blood infused into the 
veins of England sensibly increased its patriotic 
ardour and vitality. ‘To Simon de Montfort, a French 
noble by birth and breeding, whose title to the 
earldom of Leicester was acquired by his elder 
brother’s refusal to accept the inheritance of their 
father’s mother, coupled with the condition of relin- 
quishing allegiance to France, we owe the most 
cherished of our free institutions. His marriage with 
the King’s sister, Eleanor, widow of William Marshall, 
Earl of Pembroke, was strongly opposed by the Earl 
of Cornwall, and other of the barons, on the ground 
of his foreign descent; but no sooner had he taken 
his place in their ranks than he proved himself the 
staunchest supporter of the policy which de Burgh and 
Langton had initiated. Remaining loyal to the Crown 
so long as Henry was faithful to his pledge of main- 
taining the liberties secured by the Great Charter, 
he steadily opposed the unconstitutional course which 
the King pursued after the fall of de Burgh, dis- 
_tinguishing himself especially by hostility to the royal 
favourites and the aggression of the Papacy. Though 
not taking an active part in the movement which led 
to the passing of the provisions of Oxford, he assisted 
the barons, who had devised them, in enforcing the 
restraints thereby placed upon the power of the 
Crown. When these restraints proved ineffectual, 
and the great barons, harassed by internal dissen- 
sions, showed signs of relinquishing the struggle, 
Leicester turned from them to the lesser barons, the 
knights of the shires, and the burgesses of the chief 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 13 


towns, headed the revolt, which was crowned with 
victory at Lewes, and turned it to immediate account 
by summoning, in 1265, the first House of Commons 
that ever sat at Westminster. The reaction in favour 
of the Crown, which set in soon after this triumph, 
and terminated in his defeat and death at Evesham, 
only temporarily eclipsed the lustre of his fame, and 
the vindication of his constitutional policy was com- 
pleted by the establishment of our Parliamentary 
system by Edward I., in 1295, upon the identical 
basis which Leicester had laid down. 

Two other names of alien extraction, though less 
distinguished than his, deserve to be remembered 
for the same reason, that their bearers became genuine 
Englishmen. Aymer de Valence, who succeeded to 
the earldom of Pembroke upon the death of his 
father, Henry’s half-brother, was prominent among 
the statesmen and soldiers in whom Edward I. con- 
fided; and was employed by him as ambassador 
successively to Flanders, France, and Scotland, and 
as commander of the army which routed Bruce at 
Methven. He was one of the trusted few whom the 
old King, on his death-bed, charged with the obligation 
of persuading his son never to cancel the sentence of 
exile imposed upon his worthless companion, Piers 
Gaveston, for having intrigued to estrange him from 
his father. Though the pledge to this effect given 
by Edward II. was quickly violated, Aymer de 
Valence remained faithful to his trust, and took an 
active part in the opposition, headed by Thomas, 
Earl of Lancaster, which led to the re-banishment, 
and eventually to the death of Gaveston. In the 


I4 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


treasonable course, however, which the Earl subse- 
quently pursued, Pembroke refused to follow him ; 
and, after the defeat of his army and his capture 
at Boroughbridge, in 1322, sat as a member of 
the military tribunal which. condemned him to 
execution. 

Of the family of Dreux, who united the French 
duchy of Brittany, with the , English earldom of 
Richmond, and allied themselves by marriage with 
the blood royal of England, it must suffice to say 
that one of several members of it, successively 
bearing the name of John, spent his life in the ser- 
vice of the first and second Edwards. A second 
John adhered to the cause of Edward III. during 
the war with France, and thereby temporarily for- 
feited his French possessions. It was not until the 
close of the fourteenth century that the strain of this 
divided allegiance proved too severe for endurance ; 
and,-during the crisis of another war with France, the 
then Duke of-Brittany adhered to her flag, and was 
deposed from his English honours. 

‘There isno reason to suppose that the foregoing 
instances of the quick conversion of naturalised 
foreigners into English patriots were by any means 
exceptional. Probably in the course of two or three 
generations most of the alien grafts became thoroughly 
incorporated < with; the, native. stocks to which they 
were attached, and: adopted their robust virtues; 
imparting i in. return certain desirable qualities of or 
owns, The. vivacious gaiety and bright ardency of 
spirit for which the: natives of south-western France 
are remarkable ; the romantic chivalry and imagina- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 15 


tive extravagance, which are typical of the Provencal 
temperament, are not among the characteristics of 
our Teutonic family; and the large share of these 
which so many English men and women possess may 
be reasonably attributed to their derivation from an 
ancestral alliance with one of those southern families 
which at various periods of our history have become 
transplanted here, and whose importation in the 
middle of the thirteenth century was the first ona 
large scale that occurred since the Conquest. 

The “Hanse of Almain,” and other colonies of 
foreign merchants, who, during this century, became 
settled in several English cities and towns, cannot be 
reckoned as an accession of racial elements, in the 
absence of evidence to show that, although col- 
lectively naturalised as trading communities, their 
members intermarried to any considerable extent 
with Englishwomen, or enrolled themselves indi- 
vidually as English subjects. - Regarded, however, as 
one of the main channels of commercial intercourse 
with the continents of Europe and Asia, their con- 
tribution to our national development was of the 
greatest value. The Flemings, who settled here soon 
after the Conquest, are believed to have first intro- 
duced the manufacture of woollen cloths and the art 
of dyeing them. Another colony of the same race is 
said to have established itself in Norfolk, in the reign 
of Henry II., and founded the worsted manu- 
factories for which Norwich became celebrated in 
the thirteenth century. As early, also, as the reign 
of Henry II. the gold and spices of Arabia, precious 
stones from Egypt, silks and other stuffs from India, 


16 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


and furs from Russia and Norway, were brought to 
London by foreign merchants. Corn, too, was im- 
ported in times of scarcity, and the wines of France 
and Spain were in regular demand. Bristol, Exeter, 
Winchester, York, Chester, Dunwich, Norwich, 
Lincoln, Lynn, and Grimsby were all thriving ports 
to which foreign merchants resorted. ‘The benefits 
which they conferred would, doubtless, have been far 
greater but for the regulations and restrictions im- 
posed upon their trading privileges, by statutes passed 
from time to time in the interest of the native 
merchants and guilds. 

In connexion with this subject a passing reference 
must be made to the Jews, who flocked into England 
in great numbers soon after the Conquest; and, in 
spite of the severe persecution to which they were 
repeatedly subjected, remained here until 1290, when 
they were expelled in a body. During the two 
centuries of their residence in the chief cities and 
towns of the kingdom they appear to have occupied 
the position of capitalists, or money-lenders, without 
devoting themselves to any industrial calling. They 
unquestionably performed a useful function in this 
capacity as commercial intermediaries ; but the reli- 
gious aversion with which they were regarded by the 
Christian world, and the complete segregation from 
social intercourse with it which their creed imposed 
upon them, precluded their ever becoming incor- 
porated with the body politic. ‘The shrewdness and 
rigour with which they drove their bargains and 
enforced the law against their debtors, combined 
with these causes to render them so generally detested, 


© PvE te 
INSTITU 
ke 
FOREIGN INFLUENCES. NOEASG 


that the decree for their expulsion was hailed with 
public acclamation, and its severity aggravated by 
several acts of barbarity. 

Another alien element in the midst of the race 
equally unincorporable with its physical and spiritual 
constituents, was the large body of foreign ecclesi- 
astics, whose intrusion into English benefices (under 
presentations illegally granted at Rome) has already 
been mentioned as one of the intolerable wrongs in- 
flicted by the Papacy upon the national Church 
during this period, and basely submitted to by 
HenryIII. As celibate priests these intruders added 
little or nothing to the vital or political force of the 
realm, while their Continental training, their ignorance 
of the English tongue, manners, and habits of thought 
disqualified them for the adequate discharge of their 
pastoral functions. The implicit obedience which 
they were bound to render to the dictates of the 
Roman See estranged them from sympathy with the 
great body of the clergy and laity of the national 
Church, who were actuated by a desire to maintain such 
measure of independence as it still possessed. They 
were accordingly regarded by the people in the light 
of a hostile garrison, and credited with the worst 
motives as “ hirelings seeking only their worldly gain.” 
The irritation which their presence excited broke out 
in indignant protests of the Commons, and dignified 
remonstrances on the part of the Crown and its 
ministers, repeated from time to time, but without 
effect, until the source of the evil was at length re- 
strained by the passing of the Statutes of Provisors and 
. Preemunire (25th and 27th Edward III., and 16th 
Cc 


18 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Richard II.), which rendered it penal to procure from 
Rome any presentation to an English benefice. Such 
influence, therefore, as these foreign ecclesiastics ex- 
ercised must be considered as detrimental rather than 
helpful to the national development. 

Another stream of migration which flowed from 
the Continent to this country, early in the same 
century, 1s entitled to grateful remembrance for the 
beneficent effects which it exerted upon the spiritual 
and moral condition of the people. The corruption 
which had long since tainted the religious life of 
Christendom at its source now extended far and 
wide, and was nowhere more apparent than among 
the English clergy and monks who were constantly 
in communication with Rome. The frequent employ- 
ment of bishops and other dignitaries of the Church 
in judicial and ministerial functions hindered them 
from exercising due  watchfulness and _ control 
over their dioceses, and the existence of shameful 
abuses and grave scandals among many of the 
parochial clergy was the unavoidable result. ‘The 
monastic houses aggravated this evil by obtaining 
appropriations of some of the richest livings in the 
kingdom, the emoluments of which they absorbed, 
assigning paltry stipends to the vicars who served the 
cure of souls. Many of the regular were, equally 
with the secular clergy, in bad repute for their dis- 
orderly lives, but they contrived to escape the censure 
of their episcopal visitors by purchasing “exemptions” 
from Rome. Upon the neglect of their sacred duties 
by the teachers to whom the spiritual education of 
the people was solely confided, together with the in- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 19g 


fluence of their immoral example, the gross ignorance, 
licentiousness, and violence prevalent in all ranks of 
pike at this period were in great measure charge- 
able.» | 

Detietine from two Loan sources in Spain 
and Italy,'a religious and: moral reaction had set in 
at the beginning of the century, which resulted in the 
establishment of two new orders of monks, inspired 
by the fervid zeal and ‘self-denying devotion of their 
founders, St. Dominic and St. Francis. Differing 
from the older monastic bodies in two essential 
particulars, viz., that they mingled with their fellow 
men instead of immuring themselves in convents, and 
were vowed to poverty instead of acquiring lands and 
tithes, they embraced the missionary calling, and, clad 
‘in.coarse robes ‘and barefooted, travelled into all parts 
of the‘known world. ‘The first band of the Domini- 
can brotherhood, or Black friars, reached England in 
1221, and was followed three years later by a band 
of Franciscan or Grey friars. ‘Their earnestness and 
homely preaching soon won them attentive hearers 
among the townsmen, to whom they first turned their 
steps.’ The utter'sacrifice of health and comfort to 
which they submitted; by living and labouring among 
beggars and lepers*in the foulest quarters of the cities, 
stirred the hearts of rich men with a strange sense of 
shame, and awoke the’*poorest to a new belief in the 
existence’ of human kindness. Apart from the 
fanatical intolerance of all forms of heretical opinion, 
‘which’ has left a stain on the memory of the Domin1- 
cans, and the extravagance to which the Franciscans 
often carried their asceticism, the virtues and graces 

Gee 


20 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


which marked the lives of their earliest missionaries 
must command the admiration of all followers of 
Christ. ‘The cordial welcome which they generally 
met with operated to modify their original intention 
of forming no fixed settlements, and they eventually 
established friaries in all parts of the kingdom. ‘The 
disregard of theological study which they at first 
shewed was abandoned as soon as they discerned its 
value in influencing the Universities, and the theolo- 
gical school which the Franciscans set up at Oxford 
soon became famous throughout Europe. Grostéte, 
the accomplished Bishop of Lincoln, was one of their 
chief supporters, and they numbered in their ranks 
the most learned Englishman of his age, Roger 
Bacon. 

The University of Oxford, which since the reign of 
Henry II. had been rapidly growing in renown as a 
resort of scholars and a centre of intellectual activity, 
attained in the thirteenth century a reputation scarcely 
inferior to that of Paris. Both shared in common an 
indebtedness to the East as the source of their know- 
ledge, and to the Crusades as the main channel of its 
communication, although some scanty filtration of the 
learning of Persia and Spain reached Oxford through 
the medium of an English student, Adelard of Bath, 
who in the twelfth century translated Euclid’s “ Ele- 
ments” from an Arabic version. Paris, however, was 
the chief reservoir from which Oxford drew, until her 
own resources sufficed. Flocking to the lectures of 
Abelard, William de Champeaux, and other eminent 
teachers, many English scholars returned home to 
become teachers in their turn at Oxford, and after 


> 


ee ee 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 21 


spreading there the new ideas which they had acquired, 
often set forth again to seek fresh food for thought. 
The revival of classical learning soon spread to 
England, and has left its mark upon the writings of 
the monastic chroniclers of this period, which abound 
in quotations from Latin authors. The “ Logic” of 
Aristotle was introduced at Oxford by Edmund Rich, 
who subsequently became Archbishop of Canterbury. 
Bacon records of Bishop Grostéte, of Lincoln, that 
he invited Greek scholars over to England, and to- 
wards the close of his life commenced the study of 
their language. The English scholarship of this 
period, however, culminated in the attainments of 
Bacon himself, whose Opus Magnum, which was given 
to the world in 1267, is a monument of knowledge 
which would have been remarkable in any age, and 
was unique in his own. “It embraced,” says its 
latest editor, Mr. Brewer, ‘‘with the exception of logic, 
the whole range of science, as science was then under- 
stood. ‘Theology, grammar, mathematics, including 
geography, chronology, music, the correction of the 
“calendar, optics, experimental philosophy, and ethics 
are successively discussed.” Bacon, who had studied 
both at Paris and Oxford, made himself master of 
Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin, deriving through 
their media an intimate acquaintance with the works 
of Aristotle, and of his great Rabbinical and 
Arabian commentators, especially Averroes and 
Avicenna, which constituted the armoury of the 
medizeval schoolmen. 

In these studies Bacon had many distinguished 
compeers and successors, Marsh, Dun Scotus, Brad- 


g2 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


wardine, Ockham, and others,: whose’ reputation .for 
erudition, subtlety, and «skill: became spread: over 
Europe. It would be foreign to the purpose of this 
volume to attempt any analysis ofthe scholastic 
philosophy, but it may be briefly-characterised: in thé 
words of Hallam as “an: endeavour to arrange the 
orthodox system of the Church, such as atithority 
had made it, according to the rules and methods of the 
Aristotelian dialectics.” Barren and wire-drawn as-the 
speculations of the schoolmen often were, they: were 
serviceable to intellectual progress, by appealing to 
the standard of reason rather than authority, as well 
as by insisting upon exactness of language .and-rigo- 
rous argument. ‘That theirstudies had a:tendency to 
encourage openness of mind:and: liberal. sympathies 
may be inferred from the ‘political course. pursued 
by some of their leading representatives. Adam -de 
Marsh, the master of the Franciscan School -at 
Oxford, was the confidant and adviser of Simon: de 
Montfort ; Archbishop Rich: and Bishop. Grostéte 
were among the staunchest opponents. of Papal ex- 
actions ; Ockham was the champion of the resistance 
which the German empire offered ‘to the pretensions 
of the Holy See to overrule the civil power; and 
Wycliff carried the principles of his master to’ their 
logical conclusion by vesting supreme authority in 
the conscience of ee man, and an: ultimate : eg 
in God. i 
The chief contributions to the English | ligeraitire of 
this period were translations made from the French 
metrical romances of ‘‘Havelok,” ‘‘ Kyng Horn,” 
““Kyng Alesaunder,” “ Richard Coeur de Lion,” and 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 23 


the Arthurian heroes, Sir Tristram and Sir Gawaine. 
The metrical chronicles of Robert of Gloucester 
and Robert Mannyng, or de Brunne, are both para- 
phrases of Latin or French works by earlier writers, 
although interesting illustrations of contemporary 
English. All original works continued to be written 
in Latin or Norman-French. ‘The Latin chronicle of 
Matthew Paris is the most valuable historical memo- 
rial of his age. 

The prevalence of Norman architecture in England 
terminated with the twelfth century, and the following 
century witnessed the culmination of the Early 
English phase of Gothic, which was a modification of 
the transition Norman style immediately preceding it. 
The design and execution of the buildings then 
erected consequently did not call for the employment 
of the foreign architects and masons who had been 
hitherto in request, and it is probable that most of 
the artistic work produced during this period should 
be ascribed to native genius. It is certain, however, 
that one Italian painter, William the Florentine, was 
commissioned by Henry III. to execute several works 
for him at Guildford and other royal residences. 
The architect of the shrine of Edward the Confessor, 
in Westminster Abbey, which Henry also erected, is 
described thereon as Peter, a Roman citizen, and has 
been plausibly identified as Pietro Cavallini, the in- 
ventor of mosaic.! Traces of inspiration drawn 


1 A recent authority, Professor Middleton, suggests, as a 
preferable identification, Pietro Cosmati, one of the artists 
employed in the church of St. Paolo fuori le Mura, at Rome. 
—Academy, Feb. 6, 1886. 


lilinois State University Library 


24 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


from the contemporary art of Italy, have been dis- 
cerned in other parts of the same fabric which belong 
to this period, such as the mosaic pavement by 
the altar and the mural paintings of the chapter- 
house, as well as in the tomb of Henry himself. 
The sculptors of the statues and crosses set up by 
Edward I. to the memory of his Queen Eleanor are 
conjectured by Flaxman to have been pupils from 
the school of Nicolo Pisano, the peculiar grace of 
whose manner is reflected in these designs. 

The introduction of the mariner’s compass into 
partial use in England may probably be assigned to 
the end of the thirteenth century, although the 
exact date is uncertain. ‘That the knowledge of the 
polarity of the magnet reached us from abroad there 
can be no doubt, but which foreign nation is entitled 
to the credit of the discovery is matter of dispute. 
It appears to have been known to the Chinese before 
the Christian era; a full account of it is given by a 
Saracen geographer, who wrote early in the twelfth 
century; anda rude compass was certainly used by 
mariners upon the Syrian coast during the following 
century. ‘The first European writer who describes 
the compass is a French poet, named Guyot de 
Provins, who as a professional minstrel is likely to 
have attached himself to the retinue of one of the 
crusaders, and to have acquired his knowledge of it 
in the East. ‘The date of his work is about the year 
1200. Less than half a century later, two other 
French writers, both crusaders, refer to the compass 
as an Oriental novelty. These notices seem to point 
to the returned crusaders as the probable medium of 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 25 


its communication to Europe. England, by reason of 
its insular position, would, no doubt, be among the 
last recipients of the boon. 

In the seventh and last Crusade, which was one of 
the notable events of this century, England took a 
prominent part. Without travelling into the region 
of conjecture, it would be difficult to indicate any 
special advantage which thereby accrued to the 
nation. In common, however, with the rest of Europe, 
England shared in the general benefits which are 
attributable to the Crusades as a phase in the world’s 
history. Chief among such benefits were the dissipa- 
tion of international jealousies, which the union of 
Christendom in a sacred bond was calculated to 
effect, and the diffusion of liberal ideas on the subject 
of religion, government, and social usages, brought 
about by the intercourse between the East and West. 
Scarcely less important was the increased activity 
imparted to maritime commerce, and the consequent 
opening of fresh avenues to the acquisition of scientific 
knowledge. Last, but not least, was the breach in 
the integrity of the feudal system, occasioned by the 
enforced sale of their estates by the great nobles, in 
order to raise money for the cost of the expeditions to 
which they were pledged. ‘The rise of the mercantile 
class into wealth and power, which was closely con- 
nected with this exchange of property, operated as an 
influential factor in the future development of the 
nation. 


26 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


;CHAP TER EG 


Foreign influences during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 
to the accession of Henry VII. 


ALTHOUGH the Celtic element was probably more 
apparent in the composition of the English nation 
during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries than 
it is now, the Welsh, who had retained it with scarcely 
any admixture since they were driven into their 
mountain fastnesses by the Saxon invasion, seem to 
have been regarded by the Englishmen of that day as 
a foreign race. ‘This is sufficiently accounted for by 
the differences existing between the two peoples in 
point of character, language, and government, to say 
nothing of the incessant state of conflict occasioned 
by their mutual aggressions upon the marches, and 
the partially-successful attempts of one Norman king 
after another to subdue the independence of the 
native princes of Wales. Their final subjugation, 
which was achieved by Edward I. in 1283-4, followed 
by the adoption of the principality as a title for the 
heir to the throne, and a course of wise and just 
legislation, brought about a gradual amalgamation of 
the two races. A partial colonisation of South Wales 
had been effected by some of the followers of the 
Norman Conqueror and his successors, particularly 
in Pembrokeshire, where one of their settlements 
acquired the appellation of “ Little England,” and in 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. ay. 


some of the border counties,.where the. distinctive 
titles ‘‘ English” and “Welsh” are still retained by 
places bearing the same name. This colonisation had 
already led to a few intermarriages between:.the in- 
vaders and Welsh families; and the. reigning princes 
had more than once accepted the hands of English 
ladies, in token of reconciliation with their suzerain at 
the close of a war, or as a pledge of friendly alliance. 
The complete conquest of the-country, however, was 
followed by a much larger influx of. English officials, 
judges, soldiers, and others, especially into the chief 
towns, and by the permanent residence: there of a 
considerable number. There can be no doubt that 
many of the settlers intermarried with natives, and 
that the descendants of these marriages in some cases 
became naturalised Welshmen. In. other cases, it 
must be presumed that there was a counter-current of 
migration into England. . It is only in this way that 
one can satisfactorily account. for the existence in 
Wales of so many ancient families bearing English 
names, and the corresponding occurrence of Welsh 
family names in various parts of England. . The 
gradual interfusion of the races was stimulated by the 
employment, from time to time, of Welsh levies. in 
the national army ; comradeship in the field of battle 
naturally leading to the peaceful intimacies of domestic 
life. To what extent this interfusion. proceeded is 
uncertain, but its effects. may: probably still be dis- 
cerned in the physical and mental constitution of 
many individuals in both countries.:. Neither race can 
fairly claim to have conferred an unmixed. good..upon 
the other by the transmission of its, special .charac- 


28 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


teristics, but the balance of gain over loss is clearly 
apparent on the English side. The gifts which the © 
Celtic mind wasable to impart—its delicately-flowering 
fancy, its attachment to ancestral claims and local 
associations, its reverence for legend and tradition,— 
were cheaply purchased at the cost of an excitable 
temperament, too prone to indulge in rash impulse 
and litigious obstinacy. The solid sense and cool 
deliberation upon which Englishmen justly pride 
themselves were admirably fitted, on the other hand, 
to correct the exuberance of these qualities. Two 
centuries had yet to elapse before the union of the 
two countries was finally consummated, but its growth 
commenced with the Conquest, and though tempo- 
rarily checked in the fifteenth century by the revolt of 
Owen Glyndwr, who revived the Welsh spirit of 
independence, was never seriously disturbed. 

With Scotland, whose sovereigns owed a nominal 
vassalage to the English crown, our relations were 
intermittently hostile. The attempt of Edward I. 
to abuse his feudal superiority by depriving the 
Scots of their national liberties, though stoutly 
resisted, was for a time successful, but during 
the last years of his reign a fresh uprising of 
patriotic spirit, directed by Robert Bruce, swept 
away his authority. The weak hands of Edward II. 
proved unable to restore the yoke, and by the vic- 
tory of Bannockburn (1314) the Scots established 
their independence. Incessant raids across the 
border, and occasional aggressions on a_ larger 
scale, kept the two nations upon a more or less un- 
friendly footing for nearly three centuries longer. 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 29 


Though happily insufficient to prevent the spread 
of beneficial influences from the southern into the 
northern kingdom, it was strong enough to hinder 
our reception of any corresponding benefit. 

In Ireland, since the date of its conquest by 
Henry II., the English invaders formed a colony 
which intermingled without coalescing with the 
native tribes, whom they persistently oppressed and 
plundered ; descending to their barbarous level 
rather than imparting to them the advantages of 
a higher culture. When, in process of time, the 
severance of the settlers from their kindred and 
the attractive qualities of the Celtic nature tended 
to bring about a partial amalgamation of the races, 
the Legislature sharply checked it by prohibitory 
enactments. Resenting the injustice with which 
their conquerors treated them as savages incapable 
of civilisation, the Irish repaid it with a fierce 
hatred and rebellious turbulence that provoked re- 
newed severities. The relations of the two countries 
thus became so deeply embittered as to preclude 
any interchange of helpful influences. 

The political relations between England and France 
form the most eventful chapter in the history of these 
centuries, and, owing to the signal success which 
attended their arms, the reigns of Edward III. and 
Henry V. have been accounted the most glorious in 
our annals. But the glory was as brief as it was 
splendid, and the drain of her blood and treasure 
reduced the country to the point of exhaustion. For 
a time England occupied the most conspicuous place 
among the European powers, the number of her 


30 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


French subjects equalling, if it did not exceed, that: 
of her native population. By the treaty of Bretigny, 
in 1360, which terminated his longest war with France, 
Edward agreed to abandon his shadowy claim to the 
French throne and the Duchy of Normandy, in ex- 
change for the sovereignty of the Duchy of Aquitaine, 
which comprised Guienne, Gascony, and other rich 
provinces ; besides retaining his family inheritance of 
Ponthieu and his récently-acquired territory of Calais 
and Guisnes. Before the end of his reign, however, 
his vast possessions in the south of France had 
dwindled to'the area of the towns of Bordeaux and 
Bayonne. The military genius of Henry V. redeemed 
this loss by the reconquest of Normandy, but his 
acquisitions dropped from the weak grasp of his 
successor, and, by: the middle of the fifteenth century, 
Calais and Guisnes were the sole remnants of English 
dominion in France. Substantially hurtful, rather 
than helpful, to the well-being of the nation as these 
unjustifiable and fruitless wars must be regarded from 
‘our higher modern: standpoint, they undoubtedly 
served to mould the heroic type of Englishman, and 
to store the popular memory with traditions of his 
dauntless valour and fortitude, which have since stood 
us in good stead on many a worthier battle-field. 
The ‘incessant state of conflict between England 
and France which prevailed during this period necés- 
sarily checked‘ such slight currents of emigration as 
had hitherto intermittently flowed from one to the 
other. The unfriendly attitude which France occupied 
during the time when England was most cruelly 
agitated by civil war, the dynastic struggle of the 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES, a 


“Roses,” was maintained almost persistently down to 
the middle of the sixteenth century. The raids which 
French ships of war made from time to time upon 
unprotected ports of our eastern and southern coasts 
inflicted great destruction of property and individual 
suffering. The traditional memory of these repeated 
injuries is sufficient to account for the rank growth 
of insular prejudice against the French nation which 
eventually became a marked feature in our national 
character. 

With the Low Countries our relations were usually 
on a friendly footing, and it formed part of the 
diplomatic policy of Edward III. to make them inti- 
mately cordial. The Flemish cities were not only 
staunch allies in his campaign against France, but 
furnished him with the means of sustaining it by their 
readiness to employ in their looms as much wool as 
English merchants were able to export. The duties 
levied upon this commodity alone are said to have 
amounted to £30,000 in a single year. The only 
emigration from the Continent of any importance 
which occurred during these two centuries arose out 
of the friendly relations thus established. In 1331 
Edward III. invited the settlement of Flemish 
weavers, dyers, and fullers in his dominions by the 
promise of his favour and protection, with the avowed 
object of introducing their skill to the knowledge of 
his subjects. That the invitation was not long in 
waiting for acceptance was probably due to the severe 
competition which must have prevailed in such pros- 
perous trades ; but the guilds would undoubtedly have 
prohibited the emigration of skilled craftsmen could 


32 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


its consequences have been foreseen. ‘The first 
emigrant was a weaver named Kempe, who was 
accompanied by his apprentices and servants. ‘‘Many 
of his countrymen soon followed: a few years later 
other weavers came over from Brabant and Zealand, 
and thus. was established certainly the first manu- 
factory of fine woollen cloths in England.”!  Settle- 
ments of these artisans are said to have been made in 
London, Norfolk, Devonshire, Somersetshire, Lanca- 
shire, Westmoreland, and Yorkshire. 

The guilds of foreign merchants continued during 
this period to be the principal, although by no means 
exclusive, channels of commercial intercourse between 
England and the rest of the world. The Hanse of 
German merchants (whose guildhall in London was 
situated in Thames Street) still took the leading place 
among these companies, and in 1475 obtained a 
valuable ratification of their trading privileges. Im- 
portant commercial treaties were made about the 
same time with the merchants of other countries. 
Into the ports of London, Southampton, and Bnistol 
trading vessels from Genoa and Venice brought the 
products of Italy, together with those of India, Egypt, 
and other parts of the East. With Spain there 
appears to have been no direct traffic, but its produce 
was imported into England by means of the merchants 
of Bruges. ‘There was, however, a direct trade with 
Portugal of considerable importance in wine, figs, 
raisins, and othercommodities. The capital required 
for loans and other financial transactions, subsequent 


1 «¢ Pictorial History of Engiand,” vol. i. p. 834. 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 33 


to the expulsion of the Jews, was usually supplied by 
the Lombard and Tuscan merchants, some of whom 
became large creditors to the English exchequer, and 
were allowed to farm the customs for their security. 
Two great Italian firms, the Bardi and Peruzzi, were 
reduced to bankruptcy in 1345 by the inability or 
neglect of Edward III. to repay the enormous debt 
which he had incurred to them for the expenses of 
the French war. 

A succession of royal and princely marriages allied 
the Plantagenet dynasty with Spain, France, Flanders, 
Italy, and Germany in turn, and the foreign attend- 
ants whom each bride brought in her train must 
have formed a considerable element in the household 
of the Court. More than one instance is recorded of 
intermarriages between them and English subjécts, 
and there were, doubtless, others which have escaped 
mention. Fcreign favourites, of whom the Gascon, 
Piers Gaveston, was a prominent example, were 
occasionally raised to distinction by the sovereign, 
and won the hands of wealthy English heiresses. 
One of Edward III.’s most famous captains, Sir 
Walter de Maunay, was a native of Hainault, and 
probably other of his countrymen were attracted by 
his successful career to serve under the illustrious 
conqueror of Crecy and Poitiers. The influences 
derived from these sources, however, scarcely proved 
durable enough, or operated upon a sufficiently large 
scale, to be taken into account as aids to our national 
growth. 

A stream of foreign influence still continued to 
flow from the Papacy as the fountain of spiritual 

D 


34 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


authority in Christendom, but its force was consider- 
ably checked by the removal of the Papal court 
from Rome to Avignon, which implied subordination 
to France, and by the steady resistance of Parliament 
to its encroachments upon the freedom of the 
national Church. The ‘‘Lollard” movement, of which 
Wycliff was the leader, was at the outset a revolt 
on behalf of this freedom, though it subsequently 
developed into a protest against Romish corruptions 
of the faith of Christ. The rapid growth and 
eventual suppression of this movement, as matters 
of domestic history, do not here concern us, but its 
memory cannot be dissociated from the great religious 
reform of the sixteenth century, which it faintly fore- 
shadowed. 

The foreign contributions to our development 
during the fourteenth century that chiefly call for 
attention are those which concern the consolidation 
and enrichment of the language and literature. 
Although English had long since asserted its domi- 
nance over French as the vernacular tongue, and 
was beginning to supersede it as a written tongue, it 
was not until past the middle of the century that this 
was publicly recognised. In 1363 the sitting of 
Parliament was opened by an English speech, and in 
the previous year an Act was passed (36 Edward III. 
cap. 15) prescribing that the pleadings in an action 
should be argued in English instead of French, while 
the enrolment of the proceedings was to be in Latin. 
Sir John de Mandeville, whose “ Voiage and Travells,” 
written in 1356, is among our earliest writings in 
prose, translated it from the Latin, in which he first 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 35 


composed it, into French, and then into English, 
“that every man of my nation may understand it.” 
In 1385, we are told by the chronicler Trevisa that, 
‘in alle the grammar scoles of Engeland children 
leveth Frensche and construeth and lerneth on 
Englische.” French, however, still continued to be 
the language of the Court and the upper classes, and 
it was employed in drawing up the Rolls of Parlia- 
ment, as well as in private deeds and letters for more 
than a century later. Having remained in use for so 
long a period side by side with the popular tongue, 
a considerable number of its words had been adopted 
into our vocabulary, and many of its modes of pro- 
nunciation and metrical accentuation were still in 
vogue. This is more apparent in the literature of the 
fourteenth than in that of the thirteenth century, 
which contains a larger percentage of Saxon words, 
and conforms more strictly to the alliterative method 
of versification which prevailed before the Norman 
Conquest. Even Lawrence Minot and William Lang- 
lande, the most eminent of the poets who preceded 
Gower and Chaucer, and the nearest to them in point 
of date, show fewer traces of French influence than 
either. The several conditions of their birth or 
training, and the circumstances which called forth 
the exercise of their individual powers, sufficiently 
account for this. Minot, whose poems are in the 
nature of brief ballad-epics, which were inspired by 
the victories of Edward III. in his wars with France 
and Scotland, employed a north-country dialect which 
would scarcely have been intelligible to natives of 
other parts of England, and may be presumed to 
D2 


26 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


have written them for a provincial audience, chiefly 
composed of soldiers drawn from the middle class. 
Langlande, who appears to have been a priest, of 
humble extraction, and a native of Shropshire, wrote 
his moral and satirical allegory, the ‘‘ Visions” of 
Piers the Ploughman, in the special interest of the 
class who in his time (about 1362) were groaning 
under the weight of feudal oppression. To adopt 
the words of a recent critic, “the narrowness, the 
misery, the monotony of the life he paints reflect 
themselves in his verse.” ! Gower, on the other hand, 
was of gentle birth, and possessed estates in Kent 
and other counties, while he lived in London, and 
was often at the Court. Hus ‘‘Speculum Amantis” 
(now lost) and a series of “‘ Ballades” were written 
in French, for the imperfection of which he apologises, 
indeed, on the ground that he is “English,” but 
justifies himself for using the language because he 
is writing “al université. de tout le monde.” The 
‘‘ Ballades ” have love for their theme, and he imitated 
the tone in which it was treated by the Provencal 
troubadours and Norman fvouveres, whose form of 
rhymed verse he adopted. His “Vox Clamantis,” 
composed in Latin, is a didactic allegory, suggested 
by the popular insurrection of 1381, which the poet 
regards in the light of a judicial retribution for the 
social sins of the age. Gower’s last work, the 
‘‘Confessio Amantis,” although written in English, 
which he was induced to adopt by the example of 
Chaucer, is expounded by means of a marginal Latin 


1 Green’s ‘‘ Short History of the English People,” p. 249. 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 37 


commentary. ‘The poem appears to have been sug- 
gested by the ‘‘ Roman de la Rose,” a popular French 
poem. It was obviously addressed to a cultivated 
audience, being in the form of a confession made by 
a despairing lover to Genius, the priest of Venus, 
whom, at his prayer, she appoints to receive it. The 
fatal effects of each passion which the lover confesses 
that he has experienced are illustrated by the priest 
in a series of stories drawn from various sources, 
including the Bible, the works of Ovid, the “ Gesta 
Romanorum,” and many other medizval romances 
and chronicles. The alchemical lore and scholastic 
learning which the author had acquired are copiously 
infused into his work. He employs the eight-syllabled, 
rhymed couplets of the ‘‘Roman de la Rose,” and 
a larger number of French words than Chaucer. 
There is scarcely a trace in his verse of the alliteration 
which is so abundant in the verse of Minot and 
Langlande. 

Chaucer, with whom Gower cannot be compared 
in point of genius, transcended him no less in the 
range of his culture, if he may be admitted to have 
been inferior in learning. ‘Though sprung from the 
burgess class, he obviously must have received a 
scholarly education, and at an early age was admitted 
to a post in the household of one of the royal 
princes. After serving in the French campaign of 
1359-60, and being taken prisoner, he was ransomed, 
and returned home to become valet of the chamber 
to Edward III. He was next employed in foreign 
negotiations on behalf of the Crown, and visited 
Genoa and Florence in 1372. In the course of this 


38 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


journey he is supposed to have met Petrarch, and 
was certainly indebted to it for the acquaintance 
which he shows with the writings of that poet, as well 
as those of Dante and Boccaccio. He next filled the 
office of Comptroller of the Customs in the port of 
London ; was again employed as a royal envoy in 
France and Italy in 1376-82; was appointed to 
another post in the Customs in the latter year, and 
sat as one of the knights of the shire for Kent in 
1386. He subsequently filled the office of Clerk of 
the King’s Works, and, though under some cloud 
during the closing years of his life, retained the favour 
of both Richard II. and Henry IV. as his patrons, 
and died in 1400 within the precincts of the palace, 
wherein it is probable that his audience chiefly resided. 
The evidences of French culture and modes in his 
verse cannot under these circumstances be a matter 
for surprise ; and it is rather to be wondered at that 
in spite of them he should have remained so pre- 
dominantly English in the scope of his observation 
and so uncourtierlike in the breadth of his sympathies. 
It has been well said by his latest biographer, Mr. 
Ward, that ‘“‘in him the mixture of Frenchman and 
Englishman is still in a sense incomplete, as that of 
their language is in the diction of his poems.”} 
Among his earliest efforts was a translation of the 
favourite French poem, the ‘‘ Roman de la Rose” of 
Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung, already re- 
ferred to; a motley production wherein, owing to its 
double authorship, the allegorical refinement of 


1 “English Men of: Letters: Chaucer, peas: 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 39 


chivalry was incongruously blended with the coarse- 
ness of medizeval satire. Chaucer’s next important 
poem, the “ Book of the Duchess,” a lament upon the 
death of Blanche, the wife of John of Gaunt, Duke 
of Lancaster, owes several of its graceful touches to 
the French poet, Machault, whose version of Ovid’s 
‘¢ Metamorphoses ” appears to have been before him 
when he preluded the dream which is the vehicle of his 
elegy by a reference to the love-story of Ceyx and 
Alcyone. Between the production of this and of his 
later works, Chaucer paid his first visit to Italy, where 
he was privileged to witness the spectacle of that 
marvellous dawn of the Renaissance which had 
set the genius of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio 
aglow. The inspiring influence of their literary 
masterpieces is henceforth traceable in his own. 
His “Troilus and Cressid” is founded upon the 
‘“‘ Filostrato ” of Boccaccio, although his version of 
the story is considerably modified, and includes 
‘several remarkable reminiscences of Dante.” His 
‘Assembly of Foules” includes a translation from 
Boccaccio’s “'Teseide.” In the “ House of Fame,” 
which is apparently original in its conception, he has 
borrowed touches from Dante and Petrarch, as well 
as from classical sources. The “ Legend of Good 
Women” is mainly drawn from Ovid’s ‘‘ Heroides” 
and Boccaccio’s “De Claris Mulieribus.” His 
greatest work, the immortal “Canterbury Tales,” 
essentially English as it is in tone and colouring, 
not improbably owes its plan to the ‘‘ Decamerone” 
of Boccaccio. ‘The franklin’s, the shipman’s, and the 
reeve’s tales are taken from that work, while the 


40 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


knight’s tale of Palamon and Arcite is transferred 
from the same writer’s “Teseide,” The clerk’s tale 
was translated from a Latin romance by Petrarch. 
Dante’s ‘‘Inferno” was the source of the monk’s 
tale of Ugolino and his sons. ‘The nun’s priest’s 
tale is drawn from the “ Roman de Renart.” ‘The 
pardoner’s tale is apparently founded upon a fabian, 
of which an Italian version is still extant. Chaucer’s 
own ‘Tale of Meliboeus” seems to be a_ version 
from a French translation of another Italian original. 
The nun’s tale is taken from the ‘‘Golden Legend” 
of Jacobus a Voragine. ‘The parson’s tale is “ partly 
adapted from a popular French religious manual.” 
Some of the sources of the remaining tales have not 
been traced, but, in the opinion of the competent 
critic above cited,-‘“*not a single one sof these 
tales can, with any show of reason, be ascribed 
to Chaucer’s own invention. French literature.... 
doubtless supplied the larger share of his materials.” 
Besides the debt which he owed to the great Italian 
masters for the motive and structure of so many of 
his stories, Chaucer more than once acknowledges 
his obligation to their thoughts and language. He 
was indebted to both French and Italian literature 
for his forms of verse, borrowing the eight-syllabled 
couplet and the rhymed quatrain from the Provencal 
and Norman poets, and the seven-lined stanza, which 
was a special favourite with him, from the oftava 
vima of Boccaccio, by omitting the fifth line. While 
the syntax of his language was substantially English, 
his idioms were often French, and he “used a 
number of French and Gallicised Latin words not 


_ FOREIGN INFLUENCES. AL 


found in other English writers of his time.” A con- 
siderable number of these words were ‘in a manner 
forced upon” him and his fellow-poet Gower by 
‘‘the necessities of rhyme,” in which our language 
is notoriously poor, as compared with the French 
and other Romance tongues. 

In the department of theological literature, the in- 
fluence of foreign thought and learning upon the 
mind of Wycliff, the herald of the Reformation in 
England, cannot be wholly ignored. He was master 
of Balliol College, Oxford, when he first came forward 
as the champion of the independence of the English 
Church and the civil power against the autocratic 
claims of the Papal see, and was then recognised as 
one of the greatest schoolmen of his time. His 
indebtedness to William de St. Amour, Ockham, 
and other of his predecessors who inherited the 
philosophical traditions of the Parisian university, 
is acknowledged in one of his treatises (“ De Or- 
dinatione Fratrum ”), and his theory of ‘ dominion,” 
as already stated, is a bold attempt to carry Ockham’s 
principles to their legitimate result. There is some 
reason to think, from a reference in another of 
his treatises (“De Triplici Vinculo Amoris”) to a 
German translation of the Bible, which is known to 
have existed in the fourteenth century, that he may 
have seen acopy of it ; but it is questionable whether 
he could have derived any assistance from it in 
making his own translation from the Vulgate in 
1380-3. The homely, nervous English of this work, 


* Marsh, ‘‘ Lectures on the English Language,” pp. 116, II7. 


42 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


and of the tracts which he scattered broadcast among 
the people, attests how thoroughly he assimilated 
whatever culture he had imbibed. In spite of this, 
however, the proportion of French words in his 
vocabulary has been estimated by Mr. Marsh to be 
as large ‘“‘as occurs in those of Chaucer’s works 
where they are most numerous.” 

Though strictly belonging to French literature, it 
would be impossible to omit reference to the 
Chronicle of Jean Froissart, on account of the light 
which it throws upon our history during the four- 
teenth century. The author was for some time 
resident in England, where he held the appointment 
of secretary or clerk of the chamber to Queen 
Phillippa. 

To the fifteenth century probably belong several 
poems which were formerly attributed to Chaucer, 
but have been assigned by recent critics, upon what 
appears to be sufficient grounds, to a later period. 
“The Court of Love,” “The Cuckoo samdatie 
Nightingale,” and ‘‘The Flower and the Leaf” are 
the most remarkable of the number, and may be 
credited to disciples of the master who had drunk at 
the same sources which inspired his genius. They 
are all mystical allegories of the Provencal type of 
poetry, and must have been written for a courtly and 
cultivated audience, but the love of wild nature 
which animates the writers is thoroughly in harmony 
with English taste. John Lydgate, a monk of the 
monastery of Bury St. Edmunds, was also a follower 


1 Marsh, zd supra 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 43 


of Chaucer. His “ Falls of Princes,” a poem written 
in the seven-lined Chaucerian stanza, is founded upon 
a French version of Boccaccio’s ‘‘ De Casibus Illus- 
trium Virorum.” His “ Storie of Thebes” is drawn 
from a medizeval romance based upon the ‘‘’Thebaid” 
of Statius, and his “Troy Book” from a French 
translation of the ‘Historia Trojana” of Guido 
della Colonna. 

Two momentous events, which render the fifteenth 
century memorable in the history of the world, are 
prominent among the foreign contributions to our 
development. The invention of printing, althougha 
few years later than the dispersion of Greek scholars 
consequent upon the fall of Constantinople, takes 
precedence of it, as having affected us first. The 
use of movable types, by John Gutenberg, of 
Mayence, dates from the year 1438 ; but the printing 
of the Mazarin Bible, which was the crowning success 
of his partnership with John Fust, was not com- 
pleted until 1455. ‘Twenty years later, the invention 
was communicated to England by William Caxton, 
who acquired the knowledge of it at Cologne. He 
was a native of Kent, and apprenticed to a mercer in 
London, but spent the best part of his life in the 
Low Countries, andheld an appointment in the service 
of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward 
IV. At Bruges, in 1469, he began atranslation of the 
*‘Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye,” from the French 
of Raoul le Fevre, and finished it at Cologne in 1471. 
Another translation which he made from the French, 
and entitled “The Game and Playe of the Chesse,” 
is supposed to be the first book which he printed 


44 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


after his return to England in 1474, where he set up 
his press in the Almonry of Westminster Abbey. 
The first book which bears his zmprimatur there is 
“The Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers,” trans- 
lated from the French by Anthony Woodville, Lord 
Rivers. It was followed by a series of devotional 
manuals, romances, and legends, chiefly translated 
from the same language, but including one (the 
famous story of Reynard the Fox) from the German. 
The most precious and delightful of all his publica- 
tions, the ‘‘ Morte D’Arthur” of Sir Thomas Malory, 
was avowedly a digest of the principal French 
romances embodying the Arthurian legends. In the 
existing dearth of native literature, the press continued 
for some years longer to be fed almost exclusively by 
versions of foreign works. 

The revival of classical learning in Italy, which 
stimulated the genius of Chaucer in the fourteenth 
century, continued to find English sympathisers in 
the century following. Its most influential patron 
was Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, younger brother 
of Henry V. One Italian scholar, Titus Livius, was 
dignified by the title of his ‘‘court poet and orator.” 
Another dedicated to him a translation of Aristotle’s 
*‘ Politics,” and a third sent him a: pattialiitransia. 
tion of Plato’s ‘‘ Republic.” Woodville, Earl Rivers, 
and Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, were no less eminent 
for their culture and the munificent patronage which 
they extended to scholars. 

The introduction, however, of the study of Greek 
literature into England was due to the efforts of 
William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre, both of whom 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 45 


had travelled in Italy and been pupils of Demetrius 
Chalcondylas, an eminent scholar, who, after the fall 
of Constantinople, settled as a teacher at Florence. 
Grocyn, who was a fellow of New College and pre- 
bendary of Lincoln, established himself at Exeter 
College, Oxford, in 1491, as a lecturer in Greek, 
devoting his attention chiefly to the study of Aristotle. 
Linacre, a M.D. of the same university, after his 
return from Florence, prosecuted his studies in the 
interest of his profession, and put forth a translation 
of Galen. ‘The reputation of Oxford as a nursery 
of Greek scholarship was recognised in 1497, when 
Erasmus came over from Paris with the special object 
of becoming a student. Among the friends whom 
he made during this visit were More, Colet, and 
Fisher, who were all adepts of “‘the new learning,” 
as it was called, and with whose names his own was 
thenceforth illustriously associated. Colet was stimu- 
lated by his strong devotional feeling to apply his 
skill to an independent study of the New Testament, 
which resulted in his partial emancipation from the 
doctrinal yoke of Romish theology. His lectures 
on St. Paul’s Epistles, given at Oxford in 1496, fore- 
shadowed many of the simple and rational con- 
ceptions of the Christian faith to which the Reformers 
gave fuller and clearer expression a few years later. 
The only arts which flourished in England at this 
period were architecture, sculpture, and music, none 
of which has left much trace of its indebtedness to 
foreign influences. Certain exceptions, however, to 
this rule may be found, such as the effigy of William 
de Valence, in Westminster Abbey, made of ham- 


46 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


mered copper, enriched with champ-levé enamels, 
which was probably the work of a Limoges artist. 

Our obligation to the Low Countries for one great 
branch of industry has already been recorded. To 
Germany we are debtors for a more equivocal boon. 
The invention of gunpowder, attributed to a German 
chemist, Schwartz, was communicated to this country 
in the fourteenth century, and cannon of a rude con- 
struction were employed in the Scotch and French 
wars of Edward III. ‘The execution which they 
wrought at the battle of Crecy greatly contributed to 
its victorious issue. From one of the Continental 
states England likewise derived the use of linen 
paper, which was an earlier invention, but did not 
become general until the end of the fifteenth century. 
As ancillary to printing, it materially assisted to the 
spread of literary culture. 


POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 47 


CHAPTER III. 


Foreign influences during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
from the accession of Henry VII. to the death of 
Henry VIII. 


THE accession of Henry VII. to the throne is a 
memorable landmark in our history, not merely as 
signalising the termination of the intestinal struggle 
which had rent the country asunder, but as in- 
augurating a dynasty which embodied the principal 
racial elements of the English nation. Of pure 
Celtic blood by his father’s side, and inheriting the 
romantic characteristics of the Celtic temperament, 
Henry was descended upon his mother’s side from 
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, whose ancestor, 
Henry II., united in his veins the blood of the 
Norman and of the Saxon kings. 

The only incidents in this reign that call for notice 
are the foreign alliances with Spain and Scotland, 
which Henry effected by the marriage of his children 
in 1501 and 1502, both of them destined to have 
important consequences upon the future history of 
the nation. ‘The policy of an alliance with Spain, 
which had recently become united into a strong and 
settled monarchy by the marriage of Ferdinand 
of Aragon with Isabella of Castile, was dictated by 
the hope of obtaining their friendship as a check 
upon the power of France, together with that of the 


48 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Austrian Archduke Philip, who had married their 
daughter Juana. As the Duke was ruler of the Low 
Countries, which had descended to him from his 
mother, Mary of Burgundy, it was not less necessary to 
secure his aid or neutrality in the event of war with 
France. ‘This consideration appears to have finally 
decided Henry’s acceptance of an offer, which 
Ferdinand and Isabella had made him a few years 
after his accession, to give their daughter Catherine 
in marriage to his eldest son, Arthur. When the young 
Prince died, three months after the wedding, the 
Spanish monarchs urged that his brother Henry, who 
was now heir to the throne, should marry Catherine. 
A dispensation for this breach of canonical law was 
with some difficulty obtained from the Pope, Julius II., 
upon assurance being given that the first marriage 
had not been consummated. Henry’s characteristic 
caution to avoid a false step induced him, while 
consenting to the betrothal of his son with the 
Infanta, to postpone their marriage, and this event 
did not take place until after the Prince’s accession 
to the throne as Henry VIII. 

The marriage of Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., 
with James IV. of Scotland, was memorable as con- 
stituting the foundation of that claim to the succession 
of the English crown which her grand-daughter, 
Mary Stuart, subsequently employed as an engine 
against the stability of Elizabeth’s government, and 
which was eventually recognised by the junction of 
the two kingdoms under one sovereign in the person 
of James I. of England and VI. of Scotland. 

The racial accessions made during this period 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 49 


were few, and none of them upona large scale.! The 
most important was the consummation of a result 
already partly achieved. The tendency of the con- 
quest of Wales by Edward I., and of the legislation 
by which he secured its possession, as shown in the 
last chapter, was to break down the barrier which had 
existed between the purely Celtic population of the 
principality and the predominantly ‘Teutonic in- 
habitants of England; but the amalgamation thus 
effected was necessarily gradual, and was greatly 
retarded by the concession of partial independence 
in point of Jaw and custom which Edward had wisely 
and humanely yielded to his new subjects. The 
practical working of this mode of local government, 
which involved the establishment of a separate 
exchequer and judicature and the retention of many 
privileged districts, was attended with so much in- 
cohvenience that its abolition was decreed in the 
reign of Henry VIII. By a statute of 1536 the laws 
of the Principality were assimilated to those of 
England. The privileged lordships were disfranchised, 
Monmouth was made an English county, and the 
Welsh counties and boroughs were enfranchised 
to return members to the English parliament. 
The result of this assimilation between the laws and 
customs of the two countries was to obliterate all 
social distinction between Celt and Teuton, and bring 
them into more intimate contact. ‘The accession to 
the throne of Henry VII. had already gratified the 


' Occasional immigrations from Scotland during the reign of 
Henry VIII. are recorded in grants of denization upon the 
Patent Rolls of Chancery. 


E 


OS ee 


50 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


utmost ambition of his compatriots, and thenceforth 
no avenue was closed to their success. In the 
illustrious roll of our national statesmen, divines, 
soldiers, and men of letters, Welshmen from this time 
forward take equal rank with Englishmen. 

The chief aids to its development which the 
country derived from without were in the direction 
of intellectual progress and religious reform. _ The 
stimulus imparted by ‘‘the new learning” of the 
Renaissance to the vigorous, earnest natures of such 
men as Colet and More was fruitful of beneficent 
work. Colet, who took orders and attained the rank 
of Dean of St. Paul’s, London, devoted his fortune 
to the foundation and endowment of a grammar- 
school in connexion with his church, and placed at 
its head William Lilly, one of the best Greek scholars 
of his time. The injunctions of the founder aimed 
at the union of rational religion with sound learning, 
at the exclusion of the scholastic logic, and at the 
steady diffusion of the two classical literatures.! His 
example was followed by many wealthy and hberal- 
minded laymen, and the number of grammar-schools 
which sprang up during the latter part of the reign of 
Henry VIII. is said to have exceeded those founded 
during the three centuries previous. At both the 
universities the study of Greek was prosecuted with 
an enthusiasm which overcame the opposition of 
authorities who were wedded to antiquated methods 
of teaching. Erasmus was summoned to be its ex- 
ponent at Cambridge, where he remained a short 
time, and was succeeded by Latimer and Croke. At 

1 Green’s ‘‘ History of the English People,” vol. ii. p. 86. 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. St 


Oxford, Fox, Bishop of Winchester, augmented his 
foundation of Corpus Christi College by the addition 
of a Greek lecture, and its study held a prominent 
place in the curriculum of Cardinal College, which 
was splendidly endowed by Henry’s great minister, 
Thomas Wolsey. Fostered by the encouragement of 
the young King, who was himself a scholar of con- 
siderable acquirements, with a strong theological bias, 
the new learning found a yet more influential patron in 
Warham, the enlightened prelate who filled the see of 
Canterbury. Under the Primate’s auspices, Erasmus 
came over to England, and was assisted by a yearly 
pension to prosecute his literary undertakings. His 
edition of St. Jerome’s works was commenced during 
his stay at Cambridge, and on its publication was 
dedicated to the Archbishop. The frankness with 
which the great scholar in his preface deprecated the 
establishment of dogmas by the authority of synods 
and councils, and advocated a return to the simplest 
creed of Christianity as the best safeguard against 
heresy, testified to a conviction that Warham shared 
his belief. A yet more daring step was his production 
of anew edition of the Greek Testament in 1516, 
also the outcome of his labours at Cambridge. ‘In 
itself the book was a bold defiance of theological 
tradition. It set aside the Latin version of the 
Vulgate which had secured universal acceptance in 
the Church. Its method of interpretation was based, 
not on received dogmas, but on the literal meaning of 
the text.”! It depreciated the ecclesiastical system of 
veiling the faith in a web of subtle mystery, which 
1 Green’s ‘‘ History of the English People,” vol. ii. p. 95. 
Ee 2 


52 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


was obscure to all but a few theologians, in favour of 
a plain and popular diffusion of the words of Christ 
himself, and expressed the editor’s fervent wish that 
they might be translated into all languages, and 
simplified to the comprehension of the poorest and 
humblest readers. Notwithstanding its boldness, the 
work cf Erasmus was warmly approved by Warham, 
who lent it to one Bishop after another. ‘Two of his 
brother-prelates, Fox, of Winchester, and Fisher, of 
Rochester, heartily seconded his endeavours, and the 
version was widely circulated and as eagerly dis- 
cussed. 

The serious work of reform which Erasmus had 
at heart he further strove to aid by the instrument of 
satire. His “ Praise of Folly,” which impartially 
ridicules the prevalent errors and mischievous ten- 
dencies of the age, whether arising from royal 
ambition or ecclesiastical bigotry, the darkness of the 
cloister or the narrowness of the schools, was written 
in England at the house of Sir Thomas More, and 
owes its Latin title (Moriz Encomium) to a pun 
upon his host’s name. The “ Utopia” of More 
(written in 1515-6), which embodied the writer’s 
ideal of a perfect commonwealth, is animated by the 
same spirit, and not improbably reflects some of the 
interchanged brilliancy of thought which the com- 
panionship of two such congenial intellects would 
have been sure to evoke. One of the most remark- 
able features in More’s conception is his anticipation — 
of the principle of religious toleration, every subject 
of his imaginary state being at liberty to choose and 
practise any faith most agreeable to his conscience, 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 53 


and to persuade others to adopt it, provided he 
abstains from reviling his opponents. This and 
many another dream of social reform were impossible 
of realisation for centuries later, but no measures of 
practical improvement were neglected which the 
adherents of the new learning thought it possible to 
carry. Colet was especially energetic in urging upon 
the clergy the duty of faithfulness to their sacred pro- 
fession, denouncing in outspoken terms, from his 
official post at the Convocation of 1512, the “ vicious 
and depraved lives” of many among them as more 
fatal to Church and State than heresy, and exhorting 
the Bishops to initiate the movement of reform by 
working diligently in their dioceses instead of seeking 
worldly favours at court. ‘The Dean’s earnest frank- 
ness brought down upon him the censure of his 
diocesan, who accused him of heresy; but he was 
secured by the protection of Warhain and the en- 
couragement of the young King from any serious con- 
sequences. 

While these stirrings of new life were agitating the 
Church in England, a stronger and deeper movement 
was convulsing it on the Continent. A reaction 
against the spiritual blindness, intellectual tyranny, 
and moral insensibility into which the faith of 
Christendom had fallen under the Papacy, had long 
been gathering strength, and, headed by such born 
leaders of men as Luther and Calvin, the army of 
reform began to muster in force. Luther’s violent 
rupture with Rome took place in 1520, when, his 
protest against the system of ‘ indulgences” having 
been authoritatively condemned by Leo X., he boldly 


ae POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


flung the Bull into the fire, and proceeded to repudiate 
the Papal authority as usurped and fictitious. It is 
not surprising that a step so daring and uncom- 
promising as this should at the outset have been 
discountenanced or reprehended by those in England 
who were most favourable to the cause of moderate 
reformation. More, Fisher, and the adherents of the 
new learning generally, remained steadfast to the 
traditional faith of Catholic unity, and desired only 
to purge it from the excrescences which were sapping 
its vitality. Sympathy from this quarter with the 
German and Swiss reformers, moreover, was effectually 
checked by the hostile tone which they adopted in 
regard to the culture and development of the intellect 
which it was the leading aim of the Renaissance to 
effect. Luther’s repudiation of reason as an adequate 
basis of faith, and his inclination to substitute a new 
system of subtle and dogmatic theology for the old 
one which he had rejected, but with no better title to 
be held authoritative, alienated from him the counte- 
nance of such men as Erasmus, who had _ hitherto 
stood his friend. The violent excesses into which 
some of the Continental reformers were betrayed, and 
the want of unity apparent in such divergencies of 
belief as separated the parties of Luther and Carlstadt, 
further tended to hinder the growth of Protestant 
sentiment in this country. The ‘ Assertion of the 
Seven Sacraments,” which was put forth by Henry VIIi. 
-in answer to Luther, won for its author the Papal 
honours of a golden Bull and the title of “‘ Defender 
of the Faith.” The reformer’s intemperate reply to 
this publication was followed up by counter-attacks 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 55 


from More and Fisher. ‘The antagonism thus engen- 
dered led to a final breach between the adherents of 
the new learning in England and the Reformation, 
but it did not check the spread of that movement 
among a humbler class, who were content with little 
more knowledge than sufficed for their spiritual 
wants. The republication by Luther of Wycliff’s 
pamphlets revived the traditions of Lollardry, which 
had perhaps never wholly died out. 

In 1526, the English translation of the New 
Testament, published by William ‘Tyndale, realised 
the hope of Erasmus, that the Christian Scriptures 
might be brought within the reach and comprehen- 
sion of poor and unlearned readers. ‘The greater 
part of Luther’s preface to his translation, and most 
of his marginal references and glosses, are reproduced 
in Tyndale’s version. Printed at Cologne and Worms 
by the aid of funds provided by English sympathisers, 
an edition of 6,000 copies was brought over and 
extensively circulated. The merchants of the German 
Hanse were active propagandists of the Lutheran 
pamphlets in London, and an English association was 
soon formed, under the name of ‘‘Christian Brethren,” 
for the dissemination of Protestant literature through 
the country at large. This association had branches 
at both the universities. At Cambridge, three leading 
teachers, Barnes, Latimer, and Bilney, were known 
to be in accord with the Lutheran party. At Oxford, 
Clark and other members of Cardinal College secretly 
held meetings for Scriptural reading and discussion. 
Attempts were made by Wolsey to stem the move- 
ment, both in London and Oxford; some of the 


56 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Hanse merchants being compelled to submit to a 
penance at St. Paul’s, at which their Lutheran publi- 
cations were burnt, and many of the ‘‘ Christian 
Brethren ” at Oxford being imprisoned; but no severe 
measures of repression were intended, either by the 
Cardinal, who was indifferent to all but political 
objects, or by the King, who was afraid of mischief 
resulting to the students of the new learning. ‘The 
circulation of Tyndale’s version was, indeed, for- 
bidden, its use of such Lutheran terms as ‘‘ con- 
sregation” and ‘‘elder” (in ‘place- jor y= ehuma. 
and ‘‘priest”) procuring its condemnation even by 
Warham and More; but so great was the demand 
for copies that means were found to evade the 
prohibition. 

The rapid progress of ecclesiastical reform which 
signalises the reign of Henry VIII. was brought 
about by a conjunction of several causes, the most 
influential of which were personal, rather than political 
or religious, and were modified, though not called 
into operation, by external circumstances. Foremost 
of these personal causes was the desire of the King 
to put away his Queen, who had borne him one 
daughter, Mary, but no male heir, and whose claims 
on his affection had been superseded by the attrac- 
tions of one of her maids of honour, Anne Boleyn. 
The doubtful legality of a marriage with his brother’s 
widow, already adverted to, afforded a plausible 
pretext for obtaining a divorce, but the negotiations 
which he opened with Pope Clement VII. for this 
purpose were doomed to failure. ‘The Pope was not 
less hampered by-the difficulty of abrogating the 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 57 


dispensation by which his predecessor had made the 
marriage valid than by the fear of offending the 
Emperor Charles V., who, as the nephew of Catherine 
(viz., the son of Philip, Archduke of Austria, and her 
sister Juana), was pledged to her cause. The unique 
position which Charles occupied as ruler of Spain, 
Austria, the Netherlands, Franche Comté, and Naples, 
and titular representative of the Roman Empire, not 
only gave him the predominant power in Italy, but a 
commanding influence throughout Europe, where the 
Papacy anxiously regarded him as its mainstay against 
the increasing force of the Lutheran heresy. While 
Wolsey remained Henry’s minister, his policy was 
favourable to the preservation of friendly relations 
between England and the Papacy, in spite of the 
opposition which the Pope persistently offered to the 
King’s wishes. But Wolsey had powerful enemies 
abroad as well as at home, and his influence was 
waning at the very time when it required to be strong. 
His rapid rise from a humble origin to be successively 
Bishop of Lincoln and Winchester, Archbishop of 
York, Chancellor, Cardinal, and Papal Legate, his 
towering ambition, vast wealth, and splendid pomp, 
aroused the envy and hatred of the high-born nobles 
whom he had displaced. Inthe part that he took in 
the contest between Charles V. and Francis I., which, 
occasioned by the elevation of the former to the 
imperial throne in 1519, convulsed Europe with war, 
Wolsey seems to have been actuated by two principal 
motives. The first was to aggrandise Henry’s im- 
portance, and flatter the idle dream of “recovering 
his French inheritance,” upon which he wasted two 


58 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


inglorious campaigns ; the second was to procure his 
own elevation to the Papal chair. He pushed these 
ends by making treaties of alliance with each of the 
rivals in turn, as their prospects of success fluctuated, 
so as to throw the weight of England into the winning 
scale, and rise to fortune by the help of the victor. 
Charles and Francis, however, were alike too astute — 
to be deceived by this policy. Henry was discredited 
by both as an ally, and, when victory declared itself 
on the side of Charles, his promise to support the 
Cardinal’s candidature at the next Papal election was 
unredeemed. ‘The intrigues with France and Rome, 
by which the wily minister subsequently sought to 
achieve Henry’s aim of obtaining a divorce and to 
hold the power of Charles in check, were ultimately 
foiled. The Pope remained obdurate, a peace was 
concluded between Charles and Francis, and Wolsey’s 
diplomacy was again disgraced. His unpopularity at 
home extended from the nobles to the commons, 
owing to the zeal with which he attempted to replenish 
the exhausted exchequer by means of exorbitant taxes 
and forced benevolences, which were sturdily resisted 
by laity and clergy alike. His resentment against 
Catherine for her consistent support of an alliance 
between England and Spain sharpened his eagerness 
to forward the King’s project of divorcing her, but his 
failure to accomplish that purpose without involving 
an absolute defiance of Papal authority, added to the 
necessity of making a sacrifice to propitiate the 
Emperor, with whom Henry was forced to be recon- 
ciled, precipitated the Cardinal’s fall. 

The breach thus opened between Henry and the 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 59 


Papal see was resolutely kept open and widened by 
Thomas Cromwell, who rose into power after the fall 
of Wolsey. It is to him that the chief measures of 
practical reform in the Church effected during the 
reign are primarily due. In the personal character 
and public policy of Cromwell there are traces of 
indebtedness to foreign influences which cannot be 
overlooked. ‘The son of an armourer at Putney, he 
served when a youth in the Italian wars; and then 
obtained employment as agent to a merchant at 
Venice ; subsequently trading successfully upon his 
own account in other parts of the Continent; and, 
returning to spend his wealth in England, entered 
political life in the service of Wolsey. With the 
mastery that he had acquired of the language of 
Italy, he absorbed many of the principles which 
actuated the Italian statesmen of the age, of whom 
the most famous, Machiavelli, was his favourite 
author, and fearlessly applied them in practice as 
opportunity offered. The concentration of civil and 
ecclesiastical power in the hands of the Crown bya 
gradual succession of encroachments upon the func- 
tions of Parliament and the authority of the Papal 
see, the ruthless extirpation of all possible claims to 
rivalry, and the unscrupulous employment of in- 
trigue, terrorism, and espionage as agencies to effect 
his ends, were the prominent features of Cromwell’s 
policy. Subversive as it temporarily was of the 
foundations of constitutional liberty, and detestable 
as were the means employed in its accomplishment, 
it undoubtedly achieved the conquest of spiritual 
tyranny of which we are still reaping the benefit. 


60 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Before the rupture between Henry and the Papacy 
“was complete, the strongholds of the Church in 
England had already been successfully assailed. 
Upon the petition of the Commons, instigated by 
the ministers of the Crown, a bill was brought in for 
restricting the clergy from pluralities and lay employ- 
ments, and diminishing the fees of the ecclesiastical 
courts, and, notwithstanding the resistance of the 
Bishops, it passed both Houses. The power of Con- 
vocation was the next object of attack. In 1531 
that body was forced to atone by a heavy fine for a 
breach of the Statute of Provisors, which forbade 
the procuring of Bulls from Rome, and to acknow- 
ledge the King as ‘‘ the chief protector, the only and 
supreme Lord and Head of the Church and Clergy 
of England.” The effect of this acknowledgment 
was apparent in the year following, when a petition, 
nominally proceeding from the same body, was 
addressed to the King that all enactments relating 
to the Church might henceforth be made and exe- 
cuted by his sole authority, and that the payment of 
‘‘first-fruits,” or the yearly proceeds of each see, 
which a Bishop upon his election used to render to 
the Pope, might be suspended. ‘The final refusal of 
Clement VII., backed by the support of the Emperor, 
to disannul Henry’s marriage with Catherine, which 
he accompanied by a threat of excommunication un- 
less Anne Boleyn were put away, was a virtual 
declaration of war. Cromwell responded by the 
passing of the Act of Supremacy, which vested all 
ecclesiastical authority and control in the Crown, 
reduced the spiritual courts to an equality with the 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 61 


temporal, and formally declared the King to be “the 
only supreme Head upon Earth of the Church of. 
England.” The minister was speedily raised by 
Henry to the post of Vicar-general in ecclesiastical 
affairs, and proceeded to execute his function with 
unsparing rigour. By an Act passed at his instance, 
the Bishops, who since the reign of Edward III. had 
been appointed by the Pope at the nomination of 
the Crown, were henceforth to be appointed by the 
Crown at the formal nomination of the Deans and 
Chapters, who, however, were restricted to the par- 
ticular candidates commended to their choice. The 
religious houses were next attacked. A _ partial 
suppression of the lesser monasteries had already 
been effected by Wolsey, but a thousand still re- 
mained undisturbed. Their absorption of vast 
wealth and influence was not compensated by a 
corresponding possession of culture and virtue, the 
opposition of the monks as a body to the new learn- 
ing and the laxity of their lives being matters of 
common repute. The result of a general visitation 
of the religious houses, instituted by a royal com- 
mission, which was reported to Parliament in 1536, 
confirmed the worst suspicions entertained of their 
moral condition. The long neglect of that due 
supervision over them which the Papal and diocesan 
authorities were theoretically bound to exercise, 
had fostered the growth of self-indulgent and disso- 
lute habits openly at variance with the life of 
abstinence and saintliness which was the original 
ideal of monasticism. About a third only of the 
number were found to be creditably conducted, the 


62 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


bulk being accused of gross, and in some cases 
monstrous, immorality. After a long parliamentary 
debate, the dissolution and confiscation of those 
monasteries whose revenues did not amount to £200 
a year were enacted in 1536, and this Act was 
followed by the suppression of the remaining houses 
ines 39. 

The sweeping character of these measures, and the 
violence and harshness with which they were often 
executed, gave offence to the moderate reformers, 
and provoked a partial reaction in the public mind, 
which led to some deplorable consequences. Sir 
Thomas More and Bishop Fisher were both sacrificed 
to the pitiless rigour with which Cromwell strove 
to bind individual consciences under the yoke of 
monarchical supremacy. ‘The revolt in the northern 
counties, known as “the Pilgrimage of Grace,” was 
the most important of the symptoms of popular dis- 
affection, but the determination with which it was 
suppressed prevented their recurrence. Some of the 
steps by which Cromwell proceeded to enforce his 
policy of subordinating all control to that of the 
Crown, such as ‘‘gagging” the secular clergy and 
dictating the topics upon which they were to be 
permitted to preach, were mischievous in themselves 
and fatal to the cause of reformation, but other of 
his measures could not have been more temperately 
conceived had they been projected by Colet or More. 
The articles of belief which in the King’s name were 
submitted to Convocation in 1536 embodied the 
substance of several tenets for which Luther had 
been contending, and which many devout Catholics, 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 63 


even at Rome, were willing to adopt, viz., the accept- 
ance of justification by faith, and a modified theory 
of transubstantiation; the reduction of the seven 
sacraments to three, viz., baptism, penance, and 
the mass ; the rejection of the doctrine of purgatory, 
with its concomitants, the purchase of pardons and 
masses for the dead; and the observance of existing 
forms of worship. ‘The suppression of pilgrimages, 
the diminution of holy-days, and the condemnation 
of relics and images were successively enjoined by 
royal proclamation. As a compensation for the 
prohibition of Tyndale’s version of the New Testa- 
ment, the Bishops were instructed to prepare a 
revised translation of the Bible, and, as they delayed 
its performance, the work was entrusted to Miles 
Coverdale, a friend of Cranmer (who had by this 
time succeeded Warham in the see of Canterbury), 
and it was put forth in 1536 with the express sanction 
of the King. It is described in the title-page as 
“translated out of Douche (German) and Latin into 
English.” 

The Lutheran princes of Germany were now 
engaged in securing themselves by a defensive 
alliance against the Emperor, and Cromwell, who 
discerned the wisdom of making common caus€ 
with them, persuaded Henry to open negotiations with 
that object. They were favourably received, but the 
princes stipulated for an association on the ground 
of principle as well as policy, and to this the King 
was constrained to assent. The above-mentioned 
articles of belief were the formal expression of this 
agreement, and effect was given to them by the 


64 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


appointment to vacant sees of Bishops with Lutheran 
leanings. 

Notwithstanding these indications that the re- 
formed Anglican Church was approaching a com- 
munity of doctrine and ritual with the Lutheran 
congregations of the Continent, the course of events 
did not proceed much further in this direction, and 
the eventual alliance of the Church was with the 
Calvinistic school, which was as yet in the back- 
ground. Meantime, the heterodox sects, which also 
sprang into life at this revolutionary period, more 
particularly in Germany, were not without adherents 
and sympathisers in England. After the storming of 
Miinster in 1535, several of the fugitive Anabaptists 
took refuge here. ‘Two of their leading preachers, 
Hoffmann and Niclaes, established congregations ; the 
latter being the founder of a sect called ‘the Family 
of Love,” which held Unitarian views. . These 
memorials are not without interest in connexion 
with the growth of English Nonconformity. 

Except in Ireland, where the measures of doctrinal 
and practical reform enacted by the legislature were 
obstinately disobeyed by the bulk of the clergy and 
the people, the changes which they effected were 
acquiesced in by the nation as a whole, and heartily 
approved by a considerable section of it. As 
repeatedly happens in such crises, however, the zeal 
of a few fanatical spirits carried them into excesses 
which outraged the religious feeling of the moderate 
party and provoked irritation and alarm in the minds 
of the King and many leading members of both 
Houses of Parliament. The violence with which 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 65 


shrines and relics long sacred to popular belief were 
despoiled and burned, the open breach of their vows 
of celibacy by the Protestant clergy, the controversial 
bitterness to which the promulgation of the English 
Bible everywhere gave rise, the ribaldry of the lan- 
guage publicly employed during the celebration of 
the mass, and the insults offered to those who still 
adhered to the faith and rites of their fathers, suffi- 
ciently account for the setting-in of a reactionary 
movement which temporarily checked the progress 
of the Reformation. By an Act passed in 1539, in 
spite of the utmost opposition of Cranmer, Latimer, 
and other Bishops, six articles of belief and worship 
were enacted to be binding upon the Church, viz., 
transubstantiation, communion in one kind by the 
laity, clerical celibacy, the sanctity of monastic vows, 
private mass, and auricular confession. ‘The severest 
penalties, culminating in death by the stake, were 
denounced against those who denied the first doctrine 
or infringed any of the others a second time. ‘The 
Act was immediately put into effect, as many as 
500 persons in London being indicted for breaches 
of it. Bishops Latimer and Shaxton were thrown 
into prison, and the former obliged to surrender 
his see. 

At this point, however, the tide of reaction was 
stayed by Cromwell, whose policy was really favour- 
able to the Protestant movement, while he desired 
to hold it under control. He accordingly let the 
indictments drop, restrained zealous magistrates from 
the further prosecution of offenders against the Act, 
and quietly set the Bishops at liberty. In a short 

F 


66 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


time the prohibition of Protestant preaching and 
literature practically ceased to be enforced. ‘This 
daring exercise of his power by the great minister 
brought upon him the suspicion of the King and the 
hatred of the large body among the clergy to whom 
the Protestant tenets were obnoxious. From thence- 
forth they sided against him with the nobles, whose 
claims to privilege he had contemptuously disregarded, 
and whose ranks were sorely thinned by his summary 
suppression of opposition. His defiance of these 
combined forces was resolutely maintained to the last. 
A Bull of excommunication and deposition was 
promulgated by the Pope (Paul III.) against Henry, 
in 1538, as the penalty of his contumacious in- 
dependence. Efforts were made to induce the 
Emperor to recognise this mandate as operative, the 
chief mover to that end being a zealous Catholic 
exile, Reginald Pole, younger son of Margaret, 
Countess of Salisbury, and brother of Lord Mont- 
acute. Cromwell’s revenge for the blow thus dealt 
at him through his master was as decisive as it was 
cruel. Lord Montacute and Courtenay, Marquis of 
Exeter, both of whom were bitterly hostile to the 
existing zég7me, were arrested upon a treasonable 
charge, tried, and executed; the aged Countess of 
Salisbury being at the same time attainted and im- 
prisoned. By a second act of severity he strove to 
terrify the leaders of the ecclesiastical party into 
submission. In 1539, three abbots, heads of the 
great monasteries of Reading, Glastonbury, and 
Colchester, were accused of denying the royal 
supremacy, and condemned to the scaffold. 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES, 67 


By obtaining the King’s formal sanction to these 
acts, Cromwell secured his domestic policy from dis- 
approval, but he fatally erred in a step of foreign 
policy, taken in order to strengthen Henry’s position 
by alliances with the Protestant party abroad. The 
death of the King’s third wife, Jane Seymour, in 
childbirth, afforded an opportunity of cementing such 
an alliance by marriage. Cromwell negotiated for 
and obtained the hand of the Princess Anne of 
Cleves, who was a connexion of the Elector of 
Saxony, a prominent Lutheran. Her uncomeliness 
disgusted the king at their first meeting, but he was 
pledged to the contract beyond recall, and the mar- 
riage took place. Besides its personal distastefulness 
to Henry, it failed to effect the close political union 
which Cromwell anticipated. His ultimate aim was 
to band the combined forces of England, France, 
and the German princes against the Emperor, whose 
power was the great anchor of the Papacy. But from 
this conflict both France and the princes drew back, 
the one from religious scruples, the other from alarm 
at the risk which it involved. Henry thus found him- 
self burdened with the sole responsibility of a great 
war, and vented his wrath upon Cromwell. This 
favourable opportunity of effecting the minister’s ruin 
was eagerly seized by his many and powerful enemies. 
He was immediately arrested on a charge of treason, 
tried, and executed. The services which he rendered 
to the Reformation were so valuable that it is im- 
possible to dissociate his career from its history, but 
the discredit of the tortuous courses by which he 
pursued his end must be laid to his charge alone. 

F 2 


68 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


The active part in the great Protestant revolt which 
England had taken under Cromwell’s guidance, 
ceased with his death. The attempts which, at the 
instance of the Emperor, were made in 1541, by the 
Papal Legate Contarini, to bring about a reconciliation 
between the Lutheran party and the Church, and 
favourably entertained by the Reformers Bucer and 
Melancthon, as wellas by some of the leading German 
princes, received the approval of Henry also, but his 
hostile relations with the Pope rendered it impossible 
for him to exert any mediating influence. “The con- 
ferences held at Augsburg eventually proved abortive, 
owing to the mutual distrust of the negotiating parties 
as to the good faith with which their concessions 
were accepted and to the underhand dealings of the 
French king, Francis I., who, jealous of the increase 
of power which would accrue to the Emperor should 
the reconciliation be effected, professed his sympathy 
with the Lutheran princes and the Pope in turn, and 
discouraged each from giving way to the other. The 
breach was soon widened beyond hope of healing by 
the fanaticism of the dominant party in Rome, which 
revived the persecuting spirit of the twelfth century, 
and established the tribunal of the Inquisition. In 
Germany, Lutheranism spread apace, the Saxon princes 
uniting in a Protestant League, which was joined by 
the Elector of Brandenburg and the Elector-Palatine 
of the Rhine. Even the dominions of the Empire, 
which hitherto had remained staunch to Catholicism, 
became impregnated with “heresy.” The desire of 
the Emperor to bring about a reform of the Church 
without schism by means of a General Council, which 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 69 


was held at Trent in 1545, was disappointed by the 
result of its deliberations. The sentence which it 
promulgated, condemning the Lutheran tenets of the 
supreme authority of the Bible and of justification by 
faith as heretical, closed the door to the possibility of 
compromise. Charles, in pursuance of his pledge 
to the Pope, threatened the Protestant League with 
hostilities, while Henry, who was convinced by the 
decision of the Council that he had no choice but to 
make common cause with the Lutheran princes, 
offered them his aid. It was not accepted, owing to 
their distrust of his sincerity, but the steady drift of 
his policy and of the national sentiment in the 
direction of moderate reform continued unchanged. 
The attempts of the extreme Catholic faction to 
enforce the law against heresy were generally dis- 
countenanced. English versions of the Lord’s Prayer, 
the Creed, and the Commandments, and manuals of 
private devotion were published by authority. By 
an Act passed in 1545, a considerable number of 
chantries, religious guilds, and hospitals, which had 
hitherto escaped suppression, were condemned to the 
fate of the monastic foundations. The close of 
Henry’s reign was marked by the growing dominance 
of the Court party, which favoured the extension of 
religious reform, both in doctrine and ritual, and a 
closer alliance with the Continental Protestants. 
Headed by the Earl of Hertford, maternal uncle of 
the young Prince Edward, and supported by a large 
number of newly-created peers, who owed their rank 
and wealth to grants of the monastic estates, this 
party was already preparing for the share it was destined 


7° POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


to take in establishing the Church of England upon 
its existing basis. 

While the Continental influence most potent upon 
the religious literature of this period was that of 
Germany, Italy exercised a new and important in- 
fluence upon its secular literature, especially in the 
province. of poetry. Sir Thomas Wyatt, after a dis- 
tinguished career as ambassador in Spain and the 
Netherlands, devoted his leisure to the composition 
of sonnets and lyrics, either modelled upon, or freely 
translated from, Petrarch, Alamanni, and other Italian 
writers. Not only the style but the structure of their 
verse is carefully imitated in these poems, which 
include some composed in the ¢erza rama of Dante. 
He also wrote several dalades and rondeaux, after 
French models. In his Italian and French studies 
he was followed by Henry, Lord Surrey, who, however, 
allowed himself greater liberty of choice, departing at 
pleasure from the strict mechanism of the Petrarchian 
sonnet, and discarding the French usage that had 
clung to our rhymed verse since the days of Chaucer 
of accenting the final e, which would be mute, and 
the twin vowels zo, which would be slurred, in 
ordinary speech. He was the first to adopt the 
recent Italian fashion of unrhymed metre (versé sctoltz), 
which, under the name of blank verse, has proved so 
admirably fitted to the conditions of our language. 

Minor contributions to the literature of this age 
which were derived from foreign sources include a 
translation of the ‘‘Chronicle of Froissart” by Lord 
Berners, ‘“‘ Annals of the Reigns of Henry VII. and 
Henry VIII.” by Bernard André, a French historio- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 71 


grapher resident at the Court, and the Chronicle ot 
Polydore Vergil, an Italian, who was made Arch- 
deacon of Wells ; the two last works being in Latin. 
Besides these may be noticed a metrical translation 
by Alexander Barclay of a German satire, Brandt’s 
‘‘Navis Stultifera,” under the title of the “Ship of 
Fools,” and the “ Pastime of Pleasure” by Stephen 
Hawes, an allegory upon the model of the French 
romances, first imitated by Gower and Chaucer. 

The neo-classical architecture, which had long 
prevailed in Italy, was introduced here during the 
reign of Henry VIII. by Italian artists whom he 
invited to enter his service. The most distinguished 
of them were Geronimo (or Girolamo) da Treviso, a 
painter, architect, and engineer, and Giovanni di 
Padua, an architect whom he appointed to the 
office of ‘‘ Deviser of His Majesty’s Buildings.” The 
“Tudor ” modification of Gothic architecture then in 
vogue admitted of the addition of ornament which 
would have been incongruous with a severer style, 
and the change which the Italians effected is first 
apparent in the florid decoration of several important 
buildings erected a few years subsequently to their 
arrival, notably the palaces of Hampton Court and 
Nonsuch and Hengrave Hall in Suffolk. An attempt 
to carry the blending of Gothic and Classical features 
of design still further resulted in that picturesque but 
debased style known as Elizabethan. 

The love of pictorial art, particularly of portraiture, 
now recognised among our national characteristics, 
first showed itself during this period. The eminent 
Dutch painter, Jan de Mabuse, is known to have 


72 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


visited England during the reign of Henry VII., and 
to have painted portraits of the royal children, among 
other pictures. Besides Gerard Horebout, of Ghent, 
and several Flemish artists of less note, whom 
Henry VIII. invited here, he employed in his service 
two Italian painters, one of whom, Bartolomeo or 
Luca Penni, was apparently a pupil in the school of 
Raffaelle. The most eminent, however, of the artists 
whom he encouraged was Hans Holbein, probably a 
native of Augsburg, to whose masterly brush we owe 
a series of portraits which have preserved the living 
semblance of his most illustrious contemporaries. 
Recommended by Erasmus to his friend, Sir Thomas 
More, Holbein in the year 1526 visited England, 
where he attracted the King’s notice, and apartments 
in the palace were assigned to him, together with a 
yearly pension. His skill was so fully appreciated 
that he found constant employment, and resided here 
until his death in 1554. 

The dignity and grace of Italian sculpture were for 
the first time made known to untravelled Englishmen 
by the arrival here in 1518 of the great Florentine 
sculptor, Pietro Torrigiano, who was employed to 
execute the splendid tomb of Henry VII. in West- 
minster Abbey. He remained here for two or three 
years, and other works of his hand are extant. 
Benedetto da Rovezzano, another sculptor of Florence, 
and Antonio Cavallari, an artist in gold, of Antwerp, 
were employed by Cardinal Wolsey in carving and 
gilding a magnificent sepulchral chapel at Windsor, 
but it was left incomplete at the time of his fall. 

For the vast accession made to geographical know- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 73 


ledge during this period, the world was partially 
indebted to English patronage. In March, 1496, 
Henry VII. granted letters patent to John Cabot, 
a mariner of Italian extraction, and his three sons 
(of whom Sebastian became the most distinguished) 
to navigate the eastern, western, and northern seas, 
under the English flag, and to take possession of such 
new countries as they should discover in his name. 
Their first expedition started from Bristol, in May, 
1497, and resulted in the discovery of a supposed 
island, to which they gave the name of Prima Vista, 
but now known as Labrador. Other voyages were 
undertaken by the Cabots, during one of which they 
reached the gulf of Mexico, but the King’s parsi- 
mony prevented his taking advantage of their 
discoveries, and they soon relinquished his service. 
In 1517 Sebastian Cabot returned to England, and, in 
conjunction with Sir Thomas Perte, sailed on an 
expedition in search of a north-west passage to the 
East, in course of which he discovered Hudson’s 
Bay, and gave to several places on its coast English 
names. He soon, however, transferred his services 
to the Spanish Government, and did not revisit 
England until the following reign. The glory of 
having sent forth the great expeditions of Columbus, 
Cortes, and Pizarro, which resulted in the exploration 
and conquest of America and the West Indies, was 
reaped by Spain, together with the sumless mineral, 
animal, and vegetable wealth which they produced. 
As yet England’s share of the treasure thus dis- 
covered was limited to the gains of a few vessels 
from the cod-fishery of Newfoundland. The deep 


74 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


interest which reports of the New World excited in 
the minds of cultivated Englishmen is apparent in the 
reference made to it by Sir Thomas More, in the 
opening pages of his ‘‘ Utopia.” The existence and 
character of this imaginary country he feigns to 
have learned from the account of a mariner who had 
been a comrade of Amerigo Vespucci. The narra- 
tive of that navigator’s voyages was printed in 1507, 
and More refers to it as “ now abroad in every man’s 
hand.” The example having once been set them, 
English mariners were eager to organise new expedi- 
tions, and some of the most memorable discoveries 
recorded in the annals of science were eventually 
due to their enterprise. These, however, belong to 
a later period, and the royal commissions which were 
granted by Henry VII. in 1500 and 1502 to an asso- 
ciation of Bristol merchants and Portuguese mariners, 
‘for the discovery and investing of unknown lands,” 
do not appear to have produced any important 
results. ‘The mercantile spirit was as yet more enter- 
prising than the scientific, and several trading voyages 
were made by west-country mariners to Guinea and 
Brazil, from the year 1530 down to the end of the 
reign of Henry VIII. 


POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 75 


CHAPTER IV. 


Foreign influences upon political history during the sixteenth 
century (from the accession of Edward VI. to the death of 
Mary). 


THE Reformation of religion in England continued 
during this period to be largely indebted for its 
development to the stimulus of foreign influences. 
Upon the death of Henry VIII. in January, 1547, 
the Council of Regency appointed by his will assumed 
the reins of power in the name of the young King 
Edward, and nominated his uncle, Lord Hertford, 
who was created Duke of Somerset, Protector of the 
realm. Supported by Cranmer as Archbishop of 
Canterbury, whose sympathies with the advanced 
Protestant party had, for some time past, been much 
warmer than he had felt it safe to avow, Somerset 
proceeded to exert all his influence in Parliament 
and Convocation to effect a thorough reform of the 
doctrine and ritual of the Church. The Bishops 
who had favoured the recent reaction to the old 
faith, were deprived of their sees, and their places 
filled by trusted reformers. One after another, the 
ordinances and prohibitions in the statute-book which 
marked the immemorial affiliation of the Anglican 
to the Roman Church, and the recent legislative 
attempts at compromise, which vainly disguised the 
definitive rupture of their communion, were swept 


76 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


away. The Acts repealed included those passed 
against ‘‘ Lollardry ” and the enactment of the “Six 
Articles.” By a royal proclamation all pictures and 
images in churches were ordered to be removed. 
The injunction of celibacy on the clergy was rescinded 
by statute. Convocation agreed to a resolution, which 
Parliament confirmed, that the administration of the 
Lord’s Supper should henceforth be in both kinds to 
the laity and clergy alike. Auricular confession was 
no longer enjoined as incumbent, but might be dis- 
pensed with at the discretion of the penitent. The 
Latin ritual of the mass was superseded by an English 
communion service, and the missal and breviary by 
the Book of Common Prayer. ‘The refusal of one 
of the newly-appointed Bishops, John Hooper (after- 
wards martyred in the Marian persecution), to be 
consecrated to the see of Gloucester in the canonical 
habit was a slight but significant indication of the 
extent to which Protestant sentiment, under the 
influence of Calvinistic teaching, was proceeding in 
the direction of what was soon to be known as 
“ Puritanism.” 

The progress of reform in England coincided with 
a period of deep depression in the fortunes of the 
Protestant cause on the Continent. The League of 
the German princes who had embraced Lutheranism 
had been severely shaken in the winter of 1547 by 
the detachment of the Duke of Saxony and other 
members, and the Emperor found himself strong 
enough to put it “to the ban of the Empire.” The 
princes appealed to England for aid, and a subsidy 
was sent to them by the Council, but it arrived too 


fo BM LMIE 
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FOREIGN INFLUENCES. \ AULA © QW 3 


TR Le RE oe SF 


late. In April of the same year they were defeated 
by the Imperial forces at Muhlberg; the Elector of 
Saxony being made a prisoner, and the Landgrave of 
Hesse surrendering himself. The chief Lutheran 
towns of Germany were besieged and subdued, and 
an era of persecution set in both there and in the 
Netherlands which drove large numbers of Pro- 
testants of all shades of opinion to take refuge in 
England. Here they were warmly welcomed by 
Cranmer and the Council, and some of the most 
distinguished refugees were invited to fill lectureships 
at the universities. Martin Bucer, an eminent 
Lutheran, was thus installed at Cambridge; and 
Peter Martyr, an Italian ex-monk, who had become 
aconvert to the tenets of Zwingli and Calvin, was 
appointed to a chair at Oxford. ‘Two bands of 
fugitive Walloons settled in Canterbury and the 
metropolis. They were permitted to meet for the 
celebration of divine service in their own tongue ; 
and, in London, the church of the Austin Friars, in 
Broad Street, was assigned for their use, in common 
with the Huguenot refugees. Fresh immigrations of 
the latter kept on occurring from time to time, until 
their numbers became so large that a second church 
was required for their accommodation, and that of 
St. Anthony’s Hospital, in Threadneedle Street, was 
appropriated for the purpose. A learned Pole, named 
John a’Lasco, nephew of the Archbishop of Posen, 
who had been driven to exile in England on account 
of his Protestant zeal, was appointed by the King 
superintendent of the refugee churches. 

The suppression of the remaining chantries, guilds, 


78 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


chapels, and hospitals, which was effected by an Act 
passed in the first year of Edward VI., completed 
the work of demolition commenced by Cromwell. 
The more difficult task of rebuilding the ecclesiastical 
edifice was, at the same time, zealously prosecuted. 
Cranmer, who took the foremost part in it, had now 
definitively adopted the theological system of Calvin, 
which is unmistakably impressed upon the formu- 
laries put forth under his direction. The issue of a 
new Catechism and a Book of Homilies was followed 
by the publication of a revised Prayer-book, and the 
compilation of forty-two “ Articles of Religion,” sub- 
sequently reduced to the existing number of thirty- 
nine. The “Confessions” of faith now in course of 
preparation by the German Protestants, in anticipation 
of a General Council of Christendom which it was 
the intention of the Emperor to assemble, probably 
suggested the form of these Articles. The clear ex-: 
pression of hostility to the Roman doctrine of the 
mass which these embodied was rendered more 
emphatic by the proclamation of an order for re- 
placing the stone altars, which still remained in most 
churches, by tables of wood. Subscription to the 
Articles and the use of the - new liturgy eawere 
enforced upon all the clergy and parish officers,. 
default of attendance at public worship being punish- 
able by imprisonment. A portion of the spoil of the 
dissolved monasteries and chantries was appropriated 
to the foundation and endowment of grammar-schools, 
of which eighteen date their origin from this period. 
Unhappily, the rapidity with which these measures 
were passed occasioned a feeling of unsettlement in 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES, 79° 


the public mind, which deprived them of stability. 
The licence which so often accompanies the recovery 
of freedom showed itself in many lamentable ex- 
cesses by fanatical Protestants, which were fatal to 
the preservation of order in the Reformed Church, 
and shocked the religious sensibilities: of those still 
attached to the old faith. The abuse of their newly- 
acquired power by the landowners who had _pur- 
chased the estates of the monasteries, more par- 
ticularly in enclosing commons and open fields, 
provoked serious discontent throughout the country, 
and an unconcealed desire in many quarters fora 
return to the former 7égzme. These causes of trouble 
were aggravated by the political misgovernment of 
Somerset, who had embarked the nation in a war 
with Scotland which was barren of any advantage 
beyond the winning of one inglorious victory, and 
entailed the serious consequence of a war with 
France and the loss of Boulogne, one of the last 
remnants of its French dominions left to England. 
A succession of popular revolts broke out in various 
counties, which were severely suppressed by the Earl 
of Warwick, to whom the executive government was 
entrusted by the Council, and who, upon the fall of 
the Protector, was appointed to his office, but without 
succeeding better in reconciling the nation to the 
permanence of the new order of things. An attempt 
on the part of the young King to force his half-sister, 
Mary, who was a rigid Catholic, to accept the 
reformed ritual, was met by her determined re- 
sistance and a menacing remonstrance on the part 
of her cousin, the Emperor. Danger of interference 


80 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


from this quarter was, indeed, soon at an end, for, 
early in 1552, the Duke of Saxony, whose secession 
had broken up the League of the Lutheran princes, 
suddenly renewed his connexion with it, and turned 
upon his imperial ally with an overwhelming force. 
On the eve of presiding over a new Council in Trent, 
to which the Lutheran states were summoned to 
send delegates, Charles was obliged to escape for his 
life, and eventually to sign a treaty at Passau, whereby 
the German Protestants were established in the pos- 
session of religious liberty and political privileges as 
members of the Empire. Had the ministers who 
then governed England in the young King’s name 
taken advantage of this crisis to pacify the nation 
with a wise and tolerant policy, the public sense of 
security at home and abroad might have averted the 
reaction which ensued. Intent, however, it would 
seem, upon securing power and wealth for them- 
selves, rather than the triumph of the cause which 
they represented, the leading members of the Council 
persisted in a course of misrule and aggrandisement. 
The precarious state of Edward’s health causing 
grave apprehensions of a speedy demise of the 
Crown, he was persuaded by his chief advisers, Lord 
Warwick (now Duke of Northumberland) and the 
Duke of Suffolk,—notwithstanding the remonstrances 
of Cranmer and of the bench of Judges,—to set 
aside his legitimate successor, Mary, in favour of his 
cousin, Lady Jane Grey, Suffolk’s eldest daughter, 
who was married immediately to Northumberland’s 
son, Lord Guildford Dudley. 

Two months afterward the apparent success of this 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 8x 


intrigue was consummated by the King’s death, and 
Jane was proclaimed Queen by the Council. The 
illegality of her title, however, was clearly recognised 
by the people, and a reaction set in, of which Mary 
and her adherents promptly took advantage. A rising 
in the eastern counties in support of her cause, 
which Northumberland marched to suppress, was 
followed by the adhesion of the troops levied in other 
counties, as well as of the fleet. The Duke, in his 
absence, was deserted by his colleagues in the Council, 
who proclaimed Mary Queen, and her accession to 
the throne was hailed by the acclamations of all but 
the Protestant party, who still constituted the minority 
of the nation. 

One of the Queen’s earliest public utterances 
assured her subjects that, although herself ‘‘ stayed 
in matters of religion, she meant not to compel or 
strain men’s consciences,” or use other than spiritual 
agencies for their conversion. Her first measures 
were calculated to confirm the impression generally 
entertained that she desired to recur to the modicum 
of religious reform which had satisfied her father 
and received the sanction of Parliament during the 
closing years of his reign. His minister, Bishop 
Gardiner, who had been sent to the Tower under the 
Protectorate, was installed as her Chancellor, and 
other Bishops who had been deposed with him were 
restored to their sees. The most zealous of the 
Protestant Bishops who had dispossessed them were 
alone imprisoned, the rest being simply superseded. 
The laws passed during the last reign for the reform 
of the liturgy were repealed by Parliament, and the 

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$2 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


service used in the last year of Henry VIII. was. 
ordered to be restored. Married priests were forbidden 
to hold the cure of souls, and the foreign refugees 
ordered to quit the country. Northumberland paid 
the penalty of his treason on the scaffold. His inno- 
cent tools, Lady Jane Grey, her husband, and two 
other of the Duke’s sons were tried on the same 
charge, together with Cranmer, who had incurred it 
by publicly avowing his determination not to abandon 
the Reformed faith ; but, on their pleading guilty, the 
recorded sentence of death was not carried into 
effect. This preliminary moderation was dictated to 
Mary by the counsels of the Emperor, who gauged 
more accurately than she herself did the inclinations 
of the national mind. Her fanatical attachment to 
the old faith and the purpose which she cherished 
of re-establishing it throughout her dominions were ~ 
soon apparent. Against the advice of her Chancellor, 
she selected for her husband her cousin, Philip, King 
of Spain, the Emperor’s eldest son, whose religious 
belief she knew to be as rigid as her own. Eagerly 
assenting to this proposal, the Emperor promised to 
settle the Netherlands upon the issue of the union. 
The rermonstrances of Parliament against her intended 
marriage were without avail; the only concession 
which she agreed to make being an undertaking that 
England should not be called upon to take part in 
any Continental war to which the exigencies of 
Imperial policy might hereafter give rise. 

The Protestant party at once recognised the fatal 
significance of the marriage, and rose in rebellion, 
with the avowed object of rescuing Mary from mis- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 83 


chievous councillors, but the real intention of placing 
either Lady Jane Grey or the Princess Elizabeth 
upon the throne. Three simultaneous outbreaks were 
planned: one in the midland counties, headed by 
the Duke of Suffolk ; another in the west, under Sir 
Peter Carew; and the third in Kent, under Sir 
Thomas Wyatt, son of the poet. The two former 
speedily collapsed; but the force at the head of 
which Wyatt marched upon the capital was largely 
recruited by deserters from the royal standard, and 
had not the citizens remained faithful to their alle- 
giance, would have achieved success. An appeal by 
the Queen to the loyalty of the Corporation, coupled 
with the promise that she would submit the question 
of her marriage to the judgment of Parliament, 
secured the city gates against the rebels.. Wyatt’s 
force melted away; he was seized and sent to the 
Tower. The Queen signalised her triumph by sending 
to the scaffold not only the leaders of the rebellion 
and their adherents, but the victims whom she had 
hitherto spared, Lady Jane Grey, with her husband 
and father. Elizabeth was sent to the Tower on sus- 
picion of treasonable designs, and narrowly escaped 
death. Many prominent members of the Protestant 
party sought refuge over sea. Ata general election 
of Parliament, the Court succeeded in returning a 
majority of members, who pledged themselves to 
vote for the Spanish marriage, and with the con- 
sent of both Houses the nuptials were celebrated in 
July, 1554. 

The characteristics which eventually rendered 
Philip exceptionally odious to the English nation did 

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not fully develop themselves during his residence in 
England as King-consort, and his influence over the 
Queen, although actuated by merely selfish interests, 
tended rather to moderate than to inflame her 
fanaticism. Both were of one mind in aiming at 
the re-establishment of the Catholic faith; and among 
the first steps which they took after their marriage 
was to reconcile England to the Papal see by 
obtaining the repeal of the Act of Supremacy. At 
the instance of the Emperor, the reigning Pope, 
Julius III., had consented to rest satisfied with this 
token of submission, without insisting upon the sur- 
render by the landowners of the estates of the 
Church. Cardinal Pole was despatched as Legate, to 
accept the homage of Parliament in the name of the 
nation, and absolve it from its guilt upon these 
terms. By dint of extreme pressure upon the Com- 
mons and of lavish gifts to the Peers, the Houses 
were induced to agree to the conditions prescribed, 
and the obnoxious statutes were repealed. They 
further assented, by the special desire of the Queen, 
to re-enact the statute against Lollardry; but stood 
firm in refusing to pass the Acts submitted to them 
for excluding Elizabeth from the throne in the event 
of Mary’s dying childless, or for postponing her suc- 
cession until after the death of Philip. The morbid 
intolerance that dominated the Queen’s mind, and 
which the counsels both of her husband and his 
father were unavailing to restrain, showed itself in 
her eagerness to put the statute against heresy into 
execution as soon as it was re-enacted. She was 
persuaded to defer her purpose for a time ; but, pro- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 85 


voked by the defiant attitude of the extreme Pro- 
testant party, which vented its intemperate zeal in 
seditious publications and acts of ribald profanity, 
she commenced, in 1555, that course of ruthless per- 
secution which has made her name a byword. 

It would transcend the limits of this sketch to 
narrate the ghastly incidents of the martyrdom which 
the Reformed Church passed through. ‘That perse- 
cution, instead of destroying the seeds of liberty, 
only scattered them more widely and made them take 
deeper root. The fervid heroism and constancy with 
which aged men like Latimer and Ridley and boys 
like William Brown underwent the terrible sufferings 
of the stake aroused the sympathies and changed the 
convictions of thousands who had hitherto sided with 
the Catholic party. Large bodies of Protestant 
fugitives who found shelter with their co-religionists 
in Germany, France, and Switzerland, attained during 
exile a firmer grasp of the principles of their faith 
than they had held at home. Even the violent and 
scurrilous manifestations of popular feeling against 
the mass, which had immediately provoked the 
persecution, were not restrained by terror, but broke 
forth in new forms. Undeterred by pity or fear, the 
Queen persisted in her course, but her attempt to 
subject the political constitution of the kingdom to 
Papal control was unexpectedly checked. — Before 
the formal submission of Parliament to the Holy See, 
which Cardinal Pole had accepted in his capacity of 
Legate, could be carried to Rome, Julius III. died. 
Cardinal Caraffa, who succeeded him as Pope by the 
title of Paul IV., represented the fanatical Catholics, 


86 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


who had been stimulated by the success of the 
Reformation into organising a “ counter-reformation,” 
of which the Inquisition and the Society of Jesus 
were the most powerful instruments. Animated by 
the spirit of Gregory LV., he repudiated, as insulting to 
the dignity of the Holy See, the compromise to which 
the Legate had agreed, and insisted that the English 
landowners should surrender the estates which they 
had wrested from the Church as the sole condition ot 
his absolution. The Queen, in obedience to this fiat, 
essayed to bring the Houses to assent to the condition 
proposed, but in vain. It was with the utmost diffi- 
culty that she succeeded in carrying an Act for 
restoring to the Church the first-fruits which had been 
alienated by her father to the Crown. An attempt to 
enforce upon the lords the surrender of their estates 
would assuredly have precipitated a revolution. All 
that she could effect by way of satisfying the Papal 
demand was to refound one or two of the suppressed 
monastic bodies, and re-endow them with such of 
their former possessions as were still in the hands of 
the Crown. 

The unconcealed hostility which the Queen’s perse- 
cutions excited in the public mind culminated when 
Archbishop Cranmer was brought to the stake in 
March, 1556. The failure of moral courage which led 
him to recant his real convictions when the sentence 
of death was passed was atoned for by the manli- 
ness of his final renunciation, and the dramatic cir- 
cumstances of his martyrdom left a deep impression 
upon the memory of his generation. From this time 
to the end of her reign the nation silently bu 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 87 


effectually revolted from Mary’s rule, and built its 
hopes upon the speedy succession of hersister. The 
popular hatred was fed by the violent denunciations 
of the Protestant exiles who now formed large bodies 
in different parts of the Continent. Books and 
pamphlets from the pens of several eminent divines, 
including Poinet, ex-Bishop of Winchester, and Bale, 
ex-Bishop of Ossory, were sent over to England 
and widely disseminated, which urged the duties of 
rebellion against the Government and of putting the 
Queen to death as a blood-stained tyrant. These 
diatribes were echoed from Scotland, where the 
Reformed faith had early taken firm root, and under 
the earnest tendance of John Knox was already 
developing a vigorous growth. One of his most 
powerful writings was entitled “ The First Blast of 
the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of 
Women,” which held Mary up to public execration as 
a Jezebel for whom a day of vengeance was appointed 
in the counsels of the Eternal. The ‘‘ Covenant” of 
the Protestant party against “Anti-Christ,” “ tyranny,” 
and “idolatry,” which was drawn up at his instance 
in 1557, was signed by several influential Scotch 
nobles. The bold stand which they made against the 
Queen-mother, Mary of Guise, who then governed 
the country as Regent during the minority of the 
young Queen (Mary Stuart), not only frustrated her 
attempts at persecution, but operated as a menace to 
the English Queen, whom it obliged to guard against 
the risk of invasion. The alienation of national 
sympathy which Mary’s religious bigotry had en- 
gendered was rendered absolute by the disastrous 


88 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


result of the political complications entailed by her 
Spanish marriage. Regardless of the positive pledge 
given to Parliament, as the condition of its assent 
tothe union, that England should not be drawn into 
any Continental wars which Philip might be obliged 
to undertake, the Queen, at his pressing instance, 
submitted to her Council in 1557 a proposal to 
furnish him with military aid in the war which he 
was then waging with France. The King himself, 
who had been called away from England to superin- 
tend the vast territories which his father ceded to him 
in 1555, returned for the purpose of urging this 
demand in person. By dint of his influence and of 
the irritation occasioned by an incursion into York- 
shire of a band of refugees whom the French had 
sheltered, the scruples of Mary’s advisers were over- 
come ; war was declared against France, and a strong 
military and naval force despatched to the aid of 
Philip. A temporary success of the English troops 
in Flanders was followed by a defeat of the fleet in 
the Orkneys, and the surrender of Calais and Guisnes, 
the last French possessions which England retained. 
This calamity, which the Queen, in common with her 
subjects, took sorely to heart, was partially retrieved 
by a naval victory off Gravelines, the glory of which 
was chiefly due to the English contingent ; but the 
nation was too much disheartened to contribute either 
men or money towards the further prosecution of the 
war, 

The ardent hope which Mary cherished of having 
an heir to succeed to her throne was doomed to 
repeated disappointment, and when it became obvious 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 89 


that she would die childless, the close captivity in 
which her sister Elizabeth had been kept since the 
collapse of Wyatt’s rebellion was somewhat relaxed. 
For some time her life had been in danger, but the 
affection with which she was regarded by the people 
operated as a safeguard which the Queen did not 
dare to violate. For political reasons, moreover, 
Philip was interested in keeping her alive, as the 
succession after her death would fall to Mary Stuart, 
who was betrothed to the French Dauphin. While 
he remained in England, his influence was accordingly 
exerted to secure such favour for Elizabeth as the 
Queen could be induced to concede, and on embark- 
ing for the Continent he left written instructions to 
insure her protection. 

During the last year of Mary’s reign, Elizabeth was 
surrounded in her retirement at Hatfield by a group 
of distinguished men, who, holding aloof from a 
government with whose political and religious aims 
they had no sympathy, looked forward to the advent 
of a new zégime with her accession. William Cecil, 
the most prominent figure in this circle, was already 
selected as the adviser upon whom she chiefly relied. 

The influences to which the large bodies of 
Protestant exiles who had fled from Mary’s perse- 
cution were subjected during their residence in 
different parts of the Continent contributed to mould 
the form which religious controversy in England 
subsequently assumed. Both in Switzerland and on 
the Rhine the exiles were brought into direct contact 
with the churches founded by Calvin and his leading 
adherents. ‘The sympathies of the extreme school of 


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English Protestants had long been tending in their 

direction, and the consequence of this contact was 
to accentuate the difference between them and those 
who desired to retain in the Reformed Anglican 
Church as much of the doctrine, the ritual, and the 
ecclesiastical system of Rome as was consonant with 
Scriptural Christianity. The democratic theory of 
church-government which Calvin substituted for the 
Roman dogma of Catholic unity, the realistic plain- 
ness of his teaching on the subject of the sacrament, 
as distinguished from the half-mystical tenet of con- 
substantiation to which the Lutheran churches ad- 
hered, and the rigid simplicity of his mode of worship, 
which discarded the ceremonial that had become 
associated with superstition, appealed to the mind 
and conscience of this school as the ideal of Christian 
faith. Divergences of sentiment upon these questions 
separated one band of exiles from another, and were 
aggravated by intemperate zeal into bitter dissensions. 
At Frankfort, one body, headed by Whittingham, 
afterwards Dean of Durham, set up a church in close 
imitation of the Calvinistic pattern at Geneva, and 
invited other bodies which had settled at Zurich and 
Strassburg to become members of their congregation. 

These invitations were refused on the ground that an 
abandonment of “the order last taken in the Church 
of England” (2.e., according to the reformed system 
of Edward VI.) was impossible. The Frankfort 
exiles, thus left to themselves, at the instance of 
Knox, who was elected as their minister, proceeded 
to the length of omitting the communion service 
altogether ; but, having been joined by a fresh band of 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. QI 


English refugees, who preferred the Anglican mode 
of worship, the extreme Calvinists were in a minority, 
and, after the departure of Knox, who was banished 
from the town by the magistrates, on account of a 
violent attack which he had made upon the Emperor, 
the English ritual was resumed. The extreme party, 
headed by Whittingham, thereupon seceded, and 
founded new congregations at Basle and Geneva. 
The nickname which one of their opponents gave 
them of ‘‘the Church of the Purity” is conjectured 
to have originated ‘their later name of Puritans.” ! 

The term of Protestant exile was drawing to a 
close when these contentions occurred. Persisting 
to the end in her relentless persecution of heresy, 
but unable to fulfil her fervent desire of reconciling 
England to the Pope, who maintained his claim for 
the restitution of the Church lands; unloved by her 
husband, and childless ; alienated from her subjects, 
who longed for her sister’s succession ; and robbed of 
“the chief jewel of her realm,” Calais, for the re- 
covery of which she vainly negotiated with France, 
Mary experienced during the last year of her reign 
the misery of disappointment and chagrin. Her 
health failed, and she was carried off by fever in 
November, 1558. 


' Green’s ‘‘ History of the English People,” vol. ii. p. 282. 


92 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


CHAPTER. V. 


Foreign influences upon political history during the reign of 
Elizabeth. 


THE enthusiasm with which the accession of Elizabeth 
was welcomed by the Protestants was somewhat 
checked by her cautious procedure in dealing with 
the subject of religion. Beyond releasing such per- 
sons as were imprisoned for heresy and putting an 
end to the horrors of the stake, she took no 
immediate steps to change the system which Mary 
had established. The mass continued to be cele- 
brated and the Queen regularly attended at it, while 
a proclamation against unlicensed preaching restrained 
the revival of controversy. Her mental indifference 
to the questions at issue between the two great parties 
partly accounted for this caution, but it was mainly 
due to her political difficulties. The result of Mary’s 
Spanish marriage had been to entangle the kingdom 
in a dangerous alliance with Spain and a disastrous 
war with France. The treasury was almost exhausted 
by the expenses of the campaign and the restitution 
of the Church lands. A claim to the English throne 
had been asserted by Mary Stuart, the young Queen 
of Scotland, on her recent marriage with the Dauphin 
of France, and the virtual union of those two coun- 
tries under one rule exposed England to the double 
risk of invasion, which neither army nor fleet was 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 93 


available to resist. For Elizabeth to have declared 
herself definitely upon the Protestant side would 
have been to alienate her Catholic subjects and incur 
the hostility of their foreign champions. These 
considerations dictated the friendly tone of her 
earliest relations with Philip, who on his part found 
it his interest to support her against France and 
Scotland. He even made her a proposal of marriage, 
but did not urge it when declined, and instructed his 
ambassadors to support her in the negotiations for 
the recovery of Calais. The same circumspection 
prompted the Queen to announce her accession to 
the Pope (Paul IV.), but the answer which he returned 
put an end to further overtures of conciliation. He 
rebuked her for disregarding the decree of his pre- 
decessor, which had affirmed her illegitimacy, and 
called upon her to submit her title to his decision. 
To comply would not only have impeached her 
mother’s honour and her own, but have subjected 
the country to a yoke which it had repeatedly thrown 
off. No alternative was open to Elizabeth but an 
appeal to Parliament. It responded by declaring her 
legitimate and establishing her title, which involved 
a denial of the Papal supremacy and affirmed her 
own. A bill for repealing the Acts of Mary’s Par- 
liament and restoring the spiritual jurisdiction of 
the Crown was accordingly introduced, and though 
opposed by the Bishops unanimously and by a large 
body of the Commons, was eventually carried. 

In March, 1559, the negotiations with France 
resulted in a treaty, signed at Cateau Cambresis, 
whereby Calais was to be retained in French 


Odin POSF NORMAN ERITAIN. 


possession for eight years, and then restored to 
England, peace being meantime maintained. This 
relief from the immediate fear of invasion emboldened 
the Queen and her advisers to make a further con- 
cession to Protestant feeling. ‘The English prayer- 
book of Edward VI., with certain modifications, was 
submitted to the Bishops for discussion, and on their 
refusal to sanction its use, an Act to enforce it upon 
the clergy passed both Houses. Beyond this point 
Elizabeth had no inclination to proceed. She dropped 
the title of ‘Head of the Church,” and to the-last 
was desirous to retain the crucifix in churches and to 
prohibit priests from wedlock. In putting the Act 
of Supremacy in force she showed reluctance to take 
extreme measures. The Bishops and other dignitaries 
who refused the oath were deprived and imprisoned, 
but few of the parochial clergy who disregarded the 
summons to take it were punished. For some years 
after her accession the same system of toleration was 
pursued. The result was a provisional state of 
‘“‘religious chaos,” which slowly settled into order. 
The position which Elizabeth, within a few years 
after her accession, definitely assumed as the ruler 
of a great Protestant state was not of her own seek- 
ing, but forced upon her by the pressure of foreign 
influences. The shadowy claim to the English throne 
preferred by Mary Stuart at the time of her marriage 
with the Dauphin, and reserved on their behalf in the 
treaty of Cateau Cambresis, suddenly acquired a 
menacing aspect by the arrival in Scotland of French 
troops, avowedly sent to aid the Queen-regent (Mary 
of Guise) against the Protestant lords who had signed 


_ FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 95 


the “ Covenant,” but actually the advanced guard of 
an army of occupation. Although only suspected at 
the time, the truth eventually came to light that a 
few days before her marriage Mary Stuart had made 
over the kingdom of Scotland to France by a solemn 
compact. The Protestant lords, already driven into 
rebellion by the attempt of the Regent to proscribe 
their preachers of the Reformed faith, were incensed 
by this invasion into declaring open war, but, defeated 
in an assault upon the French entrenchments at 
Leith, they appealed to Elizabeth for help. Acting 
upon her own conviction of the exigencies of the 
situation, she responded in January, 1560, by sending 
a fleet into the Forth. By a subsequent treaty with 
the lords, she undertook to aid them in expelling 
the French, and despatched a force of 8,000 men to 
besiege Leith. The English ambassador in France 
was at the same time instructed to encourage the 
resistance which the Huguenots (who had adopted 
the Protestantism of Calvin) were maintaining, under 
the leadership of the Bourbon family, against the 
intolerance of Francis II. and his adviser, the Duke 
of Guise. 

Having failed in an attack upon the town, the 
English commander was instructed to reduce it by 
famine. The siege had lasted some months when the 
Queen-regent died, and her authority passed into the 
hands of Francis and Mary. The exhausted condition 
of the town obliged the French envoys to make one 
treaty with the lords, whereby they undertook to 
withdraw their troops and entrust the government of 
Scotland to a national council, and a second treaty 


96 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


with the English ambassador, which admitted the 
title of. Elizabeth to the throne of England and 
Ireland. Francis and Mary, indeed, repudiated both 
treaties when presented for confirmation, and de- 
nounced as rebellious the proceedings of the 
Protestant Parliament at Edinburgh, which adopted 
the Genevan confession of faith as the religion of 
Scotland, abolished episcopal jurisdiction, and for- 
bade the worship of the mass. But the domestic 
dangers of France were too serious to allow of any 
troops being spared to coerce the Scots, and Francis 
was forced to content himself with threats until his 
sudden death put an end to the possibility of execut- 
ing them. The government of France, passing by 
this event into the hands of the Queen-mother 
Catherine de’ Medici (as regent for her son, Charles 
IX.), whose policy, like that of Elizabeth, inclined to 
toleration, the risk of French interference in Scotland 
was for the time removed. 

Encouraged by this security, Elizabeth ventured, 
in 1561, upon another act which emphasised her 
acceptance of Protestantism as the State religion. A 
new Pope was now on the throne (Pius IV.), who, of 
less exacting temper than his predecessors, made a 
last effort to heal the schism of the Church by 
re-summoning the Council of Trent, which he invited 
the Lutheran princes of Germany to attend, and 
despatched another Legate to Elizabeth with a similar 
invitation. Following the example of the German 
princes, who had already declined the proposal, 
Elizabeth refused to be represented at a Council in 
the freedom of whose decision she had no confidence. 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 97 


Her refusal convinced the Pope that all hope of 
restoring England to the Roman Catholic fold. must 
be abandoned. 

The antagonism of the foreign forces thus shown 
in action—on the one hand, Rome’s uncompromising 
assertion of spiritual supremacy, the rivalry of the 
Scottish Queen, and the interested friendship or the 
avowed hostility of the Spanish King; on the other 
hand, the claims of the Continental Protestants to 
sympathy and alliance,—combined, throughout the 
remainder of Elizabeth’s reign, to exert an important 
influence upon the political and religious development 
of England. 

The danger which Elizabeth discerned in the 
rivalry of Mary Stuart was intensified in August, 1561, 
by the return of the latter to Scotland. Under a 
girlish grace and winsome beauty which won all 
hearts, and an apparent absorption in frivolous 
pleasures, Mary concealed an astute statecraft and a 
cool courage unrestrained by moral scruples. As 
keenly alive to the difficulties of her own position as 
to those which surrounded her rival, she set herself to 
undo the alliance which Elizabeth had established 
between the Protestantism of England and Scotland, 
and shake the stability of her rule by fomenting 
disaffection among the English Catholics. Her first 
step was to conciliate her Protestant subjects by 
pretending to accept the religious changes which had 
been already effected (although still withholding legal 
confirmation of them) ; claiming only for herself and 
her French retinue the liberty of worshipping after 
the Catholic fashion. While thus deluding her sub- 

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98 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


jects, she was secretly assuring the Pope of her 
purpose to restore Catholicism both in Scotland and 
England, and negotiating with Philip for the hand of 
his son, Don Carlos, to bring about this result. 
Against Mary’s shafts of fascination and cunning, 
Elizabeth could only oppose her old policy of patient 
compromise and watchful self-defence. She would 
neither assent to recognise Mary as a successor, which 
would have alienated the Protestant party, nor to set 
her claims aside by fixing upon another Protestant 
cousin, for fear of exciting the Catholics into rebellion. 
The same caution dictated her coquettish treatment 
of the suitors for her own hand, whose hopes of 
success she alternately flattered, without definitely 
pledging herself to either the Catholic Archduke of 
Austria or the Protéstant Earl of Leicester. The 
danger of her position was increased by the dis- 
organised condition of the French Huguenots, upon 
whose co-operation she had relied. Confident in 
their growing numbers and the tolerant policy of 
Catherine, they preferred demands which alarmed 
Philip, who apprehended that the success of Calvinism 
in France would lead to a revolt of the Netherlands, 
where the Inquisition was now in active operation. 
He accordingly stirred up the French Catholic party, 
headed by the Duke of Guise, against Catherine’s 
policy. Her attempt to pacify the contending factions 
by an edict in 1562 was frustrated by their mutual 
violence. ‘The massacre of a Protestant congregation 
at Vassy by the Duke’s orders was followed by his 
entry into Paris with a force strong enough to seize 
both the Queen-regent and the young King. The 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES, 99 


Huguenots, under Condé and Coligni, rose in arms, 
but their organisation was inferior to that of their 
opponents, who, reinforced by troops furnished by the 
Pope and Philip, put them to flight. In their ex- 
tremity, the leaders applied for help to Elizabeth and 
the German princes, who both responded to the 
appeal. By a treaty made with the Huguenots in 
September, 1562, the Queen undertook to furnish 
6,000 men and a subsidy of 100,000 crowns, in 
consideration of the surrender of Havre as a security 
for the restoration of Calais. Before the English 
troops could arrive, however, the Huguenot army was 
severely defeated at Dreux. This disaster was deeply 
felt in England, but it only nerved the Queen and her © 
advisers to fresh efforts. ‘The assassination of the 
Duke of Guise by a fanatic soon afterwards reversed 
the position of the contending parties. The Hugue- 
nots, by the aid of their English reinforcements, made 
themselves masters of Normandy, and Catherine was 
driven to agree to a treaty by which toleration was 
restored. 

An act of aggression by the Pope in August, 1562, 
drove Elizabeth to abandon the policy of toleration 
she had hitherto observed. A brief was issued which 
forbade English Catholics to attend church or to use 
the Book of Common Prayer. Conformity to the 
established ritual had until now exempted them from 
any inquisition respecting their creed, but when, in 
obedience to this brief, they withdrew from church, 
it was thought necessary to fine them as ‘ recusants.” 
A still more stringent measure was passed by the 
Parliament which met in January, 1563. By the 

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Ioo POST NORMAN BRITAIN. . 


Test Act all persons other than peers holding any 
lay or spiritual offices in the realm were required to 
take an oath of allegiance to the Queen, and abjure 
the temporal authority of the Papal see. The Act of 
Uniformity, which many of the parish clergy had 
evaded, was directed to be put in force, while Con- 
vocation agreed to adopt thirty-nine of the Articles of 
Faith formulated in the reign of Edward VI., which 
had remained in abeyance since the Queen’s accession. 

Scotland now became a fresh source of danger, in 
consequence of the strained relations between Mary 
Stuart and her subjects. Her duplicity had been 
detected by Knox, who, at the head of the extreme 
Calvinistic party, denounced her treacherous design 
of restoring the old faith, and promptly frustrated it 
by enforcing the penal statutes against the celebration 
of mass. Her inability to protect the victims of this 
prosecution estranged from her the English Catholics, 
upon whose support she counted to effect her purpose 
of winning Elizabeth’s throne. Fearing that, should 
the succession become vacant, they would prefer the 
claim of her Catholic cousin, Henry, Lord Darnley (the 
grandson of Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., 
by a second marriage), she determined to put herself 
at the head of the party by accepting the hand of 
Darnley, which had already been offered to her. A 
dispensation for the marriage was obtained from the 
Pope, upon the assurance that the Queen and her 
husband would use their best endeavours to restore 
Scotland to the Catholic faith. Though strenuously 
opposed by her half-brother, Lord Murray, and other 
of the Protestant lords, as well as by Elizabeth, the 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. Iol 


marriage was celebrated in July, 1565. Murray’s 
attempt to arouse the Protestants to rebellion was 
foiled by the desertion of the leading members of the 
party, Lords Morton, Ruthven, and Lindsay, and he 
was driven to take refuge in England. Mary’s triumph 
seemed to be complete, and the lofty tone in which 
she demanded Elizabeth’s acknowledgment of her 
right to the succession bespoke her consciousness ot 
power. ‘The announcement of her pregnancy, which 
soon followed, gave this claim significance by the 
hopes which it excited in the English Catholics. By 
the advice of her Italian secretary, Rizzio, who was 
the agent of all her political intrigues, Mary took the 
first step towards the restoration of Catholicism by 
summoning a new Parliament, and recalling several 
Catholic nobles to Court. But the fulfilment of her 
designs was frustrated by a counter-intrigue of Darnley, 
who, jealous of Rizzio’s influence over her, conspired 
with some of the Protestant lords for his assassination. 
On March 9g, 1566, the eve of the assembling of 
Parliament, he was stabbed to death by the con- 
spirators in the Queen’s presence-chamber. Parlia- 
ment was dissolved, and Murray, who was privy to 
the conspiracy, returned from exile. Concealing her 
purpose of revenge, Mary assumed a return of affection 
for Darnley, and persuaded him to break away from 
his allies. By his aid she escaped to Dunbar, where 
Lord Bothwell, a bold and unscrupulous soldier, met 
her with 8,000 men, at whose head she marched 
upon Edinburgh. ‘There she proclaimed an offer of 
pardon to all but the murderers of Rizzio, affected to 
be reconciled to Murray, and to recur to her former 


102 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


course of toleration. By this means she rallied round 
her some of the leading nobles who had stood aloof, 
and regained much of the popularity she had lost. 
The English Catholics, with whom she was in constant 
communication, now looked upon her succession to 
Elizabeth as assured. The birth of her son James in 
June, 1566, crowned their hopes, and deepened the 
gloom of the Protestant party. 

But in 1567 her complicity in a tragedy of crime 
relieved England from the danger of a Catholic 
restoration. ‘Theaversion with which Mary regarded 
her husband ripened with the growth of a passion for 
Bothwell, who took advantage of it to gratify his ambi- 
tion. Allying himself with the nobles whom Darnley 
had deserted, he obtained their recall from exile, and 
organised a conspiracy for his own elevation to power. 
An isolated house, to which Darnley during an attack of 
illness had been removed by the Queen’s advice, was 
one night shattered by an explosion of gunpowder, 
and his dead body was found in the ruins. Bothwell, 
to whose agency the storage of the powder was 
traced, was charged with the murder, but no steps 
were taken to try him until the chief fortresses of the 
realm were put into his power, when, attended by a 
large force, he submitted to trial and obtained an 
acquittal. His fellow-conspirators were induced to 
consent to his marriage with the Queen, while the 
Protestant party were conciliated by her confirmation 
of the Parliamentary enactments which had estab- 
lished the Reformed faith. Her pretended capture by 
Bothwell with a troop of horse, who carried her to 
Dunbar Castle, whence, after five days’ detention, she 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 103 


was brought to Edinburgh, was followed by a public 
announcement of her intention to pardon his audacity 
in consideration of his great services, and exalt him 
to higher honour. After ridding himself of his wife 
by a collusive divorce suit, he was married to the 
Queen on the 15th of May. These scandalous pro- 
ceedings excited general repulsion. Mary’s Catholic 
supporters were indignant at her sanction of the 
Reformation, while Bothwell’s co-religionists  dis- 
avowed him as unworthy of their communion. ‘Two 
of the Protestant lords, mustering a large force, 
marched into Edinburgh and excited a popular revolt. 
The troops whom Mary and Bothwell summoned 
to oppose them at Carberry Hill proved disaffected, 
and Bothwell, seeing that all was lost, fled into exile. 
The Queen was brought back to Edinburgh amid the 
execrations of her people, and committed to close 
imprisonment ; eventually being persuaded to resign 
the crown in favour of her son, a child of fourteen 
months old, who was entrusted to the custody of 
Murray as Regent. A Parliament was then summoned 
to legalise these changes; the Acts passed in 1560 
against the doctrine and practice of the Romish 
Church were re-enacted, and the Reformed faith once 
more established in Scotland. 

Although saved by the fall of Mary from the most 
imminent of its dangers, the situation of England, 
now that Elizabeth’s Protestant policy had been 
declared, was still extremely critical A new Pope 
had ascended the throne in 1565 under the title of 
Pius V., whose previous training as an inquisitor 
qualified him to undertake the task of restoring 


104 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Christendom to the Church, without regard to the 
nature of the means employed. Intrigue and murder, 
whether wholesale massacre or secret assassination, 
were consecrated weapons in such hands. His 
direction of the strategy of the Catholic powers 
throughout Europe gave them unity of action. The 
importance of England as a_ firmly-constituted 
government and a great centre of trade singled her 
out as the object of attack. No sooner was she freed 
from aggression on her northern frontier than the 
danger was shifted to the east. The doctrines of 
Calvin had taken deep root in the Netherlands, 
which formed the richest portion of the Spanish 
dominions. The chartered privileges of the munici- 
palities and trade guilds had developed a spirit of 
independence which was hateful to Philip’s autocratic 
temper, and their wealth had long tempted his 
avarice. The spread of heresy in) @themeemias 
afforded him the desired opportunity of subduing and 
plundering them. Taking advantage of an outbreak, 
in which several eminent nobles and citizens were 
implicated, he assembled in 1567 an army of 10,000 
men, under the Duke of Alva, which marched into 
the Netherlands and stamped out every vestige of 
civil and religious liberty. Many leading statesmen 
were either beheaded or driven into exile; the cities 
were overawed by garrisons, and the tribunal of 
the Inquisition sent numbers of heretics to the stake. 
The indignation with which the Protestant party in 
England heard the tidings of Alva’s cruelty increased 
Elizabeth’s difficulties. ‘To have interfered actively 
on behalf of the persecuted Dutch would have in- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. I05 


volved a war which she was not prepared to wage, 
and have paralysed the trade of London, of which 
Flanders was the chief market. All that it seemed 
possible to do was to await the progress of events, 
and give welcome and shelter to the refugees who 
flocked by hundreds to the English shores. 

The severity of the penal statutes passed by the 
Scottish Parliament against the Catholics roused them 
to another effort for their dethroned Queen. In May, 
1568, an attempt planned for Mary’s escape from 
Lochleven Castle proved successful, and she was 
joined by an army of 6,o00 men, headed by several 
Catholic nobles. Murray quickly took the field with 
a stronger force, and at Langside inflicted upon her a 
crushing defeat. Escaping with a few faithful fol- 
lowers, but finding her cause lost in Scotland, Mary 
crossed the Solway and sought refuge in the dominions 
of her rival, upon whose monarchical sympathies she 
counted for aid to regain the throne. Her presence 
in England was the most embarrassing difficulty 
Elizabeth had yet encountered. To take up arms 
on her behalf, as Mary demanded, would have been 
to break faith with the whole Protestant party for the 
sake of benefiting an. enemy. To allow her a free 
passage to France, which was Mary’s alternative 
request, was to invite the French Catholics, headed 
by her relatives the Guises, to invade Scotland ; while 
to detain her as a prisoner was to create a focus of 
rebellion in England itself. Elizabeth accordingly 
negotiated with Murray for her restoration; but as 
he stipulated that Mary should be first tried and 
acquitted of the murder of Darnley, and Mary on her 


106 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


part refused to submit to trial, no terms of compro- 
mise could be settled. Meantime, her cause was 
gaining ground in England, and designs were already 
on foot for her marriage with the Duke of Norfolk, 
the premier peer of the realm, whose Protestantism 
was but nominal. 

The long truce between the two great religious 
parties in the country was drawing to a close. 
Elizabeth’s chief adviser, Cecil, who headed the 
Protestants, urged upon her the wisdom of allying 
herself with the Reformed Continental Churches, 
supporting the Dutch against Spain, and delivering up 
Mary to her accusers. ‘The Catholic party, seconded 
by many waverers whose interests disposed them to 
peace, advocated a directly-opposite policy. For a 
time the Queen was content to steer between these 
extreme courses. Without declaring war with Spain, 
she helped the Dutch by putting restrictions upon 
Spanish trading vessels and capturing a convoy of 
treasure on its way to Alva, while she showed her 
sympathy with the Huguenots by sending arms and 
money to their leader, Condé. She was soon driven 
to adopt more resolute action by the aggression of 
Pius V. Early in 1569 a Bull was drawn up, 
though not at once put forth, which excommunicated 
her as a heretic, and absolved her subjects from 
allegiance under pain of anathema. An envoy from 
Rome announced this to the English Catholics, and 
Ridolfi, an Italian in London, was entrusted with 
authority and means to raise a rebellion in the 
north, and entangle the Duke of Norfolk into 
matrimonial negotiations with Mary. Weak, am- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. I07 


bitious, and insincere, the Duke was a fitting tool for 
such an intrigue. ‘Though pledged not to correspond 
with Mary without Elizabeth’s permission, he soon 
disobeyed. The great northern nobles, headed by 
Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and Neville, Earl of 
Westmoreland, retained their attachment to the 
Catholic faith, and readily fell in with a design for 
its re-establishment. The defeat of the Huguenots 
and the death of their leader, Condé, at Jarnac, 
occurred at this crisis (March, 1569), and the French 
Catholics were emboldened to suggest that Philip 
should join them in invading England, and bring the ~ 
northern rebellion to a victorious issue. Elizabeth 
was apprised of her peril in time, and struck the 
first blow. Norfolk was summoned to Court, and 
committed to the Tower as a prisoner ; other 
suspected peers were put under restraint, and Mary 
was transferred to the custody of a rigid Protestant, 
Lord Huntingdon. In November, 1569, the Earls 
of Northumberland and Westmoreland responded to 
a summons to Court bya precipitate rising. Without 
raising the standard of Mary, they demanded that 
her succession should be recognised, the Catholic 
faith restored, and the Queen’s Protestant ministers 
dismissed. At the head of a large army they entered 
Durham, and heard mass before the high altar of 
the cathedral, proclaiming throughout the north 
that their aim was to bring back “ the old custom and 
usage.” But the answer to their appeal was less 
unanimous than they expected. Many upon whose 
influence they had counted refused to join them, and 
others held back from an enterprise not supported 


108 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


by Spanish aid. The army of the Earls broke up at 
the first signs of their irresolution, and with their own 
flight the rebellion quickly collapsed. 

The severity with which the Queen punished those 
who had taken part in it testified to the alarm it 
had occasioned, and the Pope thereupon stimulated 
the English Catholics to a final effort by promulgating 
the hitherto deferred Bull of Deposition in March, 
1570. Its effect was largely to increase the number 
of ‘recusants,” but, except in the minds of a few 
fanatics, it failed to sunder the ties of allegiance and 
attachment which bound her Catholic subjects to 
Elizabeth’s rule. Disappointed at the failure of its 
spiritual weapons, the Papal court resorted to baser 
instruments. The Regent Murray had been assassi- 
nated by a Catholic zealot in January, 1570, and 
among the plots submitted for the approval of the 
Pope by Ridolfi was one for the capture of Elizabeth 
and her Protestant ministers, to be followed by the 
elevation of Mary to the throne and her marriage to 
Norfolk. The Duke, who had been released from 
prison after the failure of the northern revolt, was 
soon involved in negotiations with Mary and Philip 
for the furtherance of this design. Many of the 
Catholic peers seconded his request for Spanish aid, 
and it was strongly urged by Ridolfi. But, though 
fully approving the scheme, Philip hesitated to 
despatch troops until assured of the success of a 
Catholic rising and the actual seizure of the Queen’s 
person. ‘The apprehension of her danger served to 
quicken the Protestant feeling of Parliament, which 
enacted penal statutes against the introduction of 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 10g 


Papal bulls and the denial of the Queen’s title to the 
throne on the pretext of heresy; set aside all 
claims to the succession asserted during the Queen’s 
life, and disabled any one from holding a public 
office who refused to subscribe the Articles of Faith. 
Norfolk’s intrigues were finally checked by his arrest 
in 1571, followed by his trial, conviction, and 
execution. The Earl of Northumberland shared the 
same fate. 

Though the worst of the danger was over, the 
excitement of the crisis did not quickly subside. The 
Calvinistic party, which still maintained communion 
with their foreign brethren, took occasion to agitate 
for reforms in the liturgy, and in 1571 a Bill was 
brought into Parliament which would have assimilated 
the Prayer-book to the Genevan model. But, 
against the advice of Cecil, Elizabeth refused to 
abandon her policy of compromise, and vetoed the 
Bill. There can be little doubt that her moderation 
in dealing with religious questions was in accord with 
the inclination of the bulk of her people. Although 
Protestants were yearly becoming more numerous, 
their conversion was being effected by the habit of 
conformity rather than by change of conviction, and 
would have been checked by violent attempts at 
innovation. The fanaticism of a small section, 
headed by Cartwright, Margaret Professor of Divinity 
at Cambridge, whose studies at Geneva had 
imbued him with a bigoted attachment to the 
Presbyterian system, repelled the alliance of many 
who would have welcomed a further instalment of 
reform. 


a 


TIO%} POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 

Act ae 2 

Foréign influences once more operated to intensify 
the Protestant feeling of England, and to modify 
the policy of her ruler. In 1572, the prostrate con- 
dition to which the tyranny of Alva had temporarily 
reduced the Netherlands was suddenly changed by 
the capture of the town of Brill, and the repulse of 
the Spaniards by a small naval force sailing under 
the flag of the Prince of Orange, the leader of the 
Dutch Protestants. Fired by this example, the chief 
cities of Holland rose in a revolt which extended 
over half the country. The protracted civil war 
which thus opened, eventually terminated in the in- 
dependence ‘of the United Provinces; but the issue 
of their gallant struggle was long uncertain, and for 
some years William of Orange could count upon no 
foreign support. At the outset he had a prospect 
of obtaining it from France, whose young King, 
Charles IX., under the stimulus of hatred to Spain, 
showed a disposition to break away from his mother’s 
guidance, and be ruled by the advice of the Hugue- 
not leader, Coligni, who promised his aid in invading 
the Spanish Netherlands. But fear of losing her 
authority over France drove Catherine into a savage 
reversal of her habitual policy. Allying herself with 
the Guises, and persuading the King that Coligni 
was aiming at supreme power, she obtained his 
sanction to a plot for massacring all the Huguenots 
ata blow. It was carried into effect upon St. Bar- 
tholomew’s Day (August 24), 1572, when nearly 
100,000 members of the party, including Coligni and 
other leaders, are believed to have perished. ‘The 
rejoicing with which the tragedy was celebrated by 


é 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. Lik 


Philip and by Gregory XIII. (who had succeeded 
Pius V. in the Papal chair) measured the height 
which religious animosity had now reached, Though 
sharing the horror which these tidings. excited in 
England, and the sympathy called forth by the 
spirited revolt of the Dutch, Elizabeth was not dis- 
posed to interfere actively on the Protestant side. 
To her cool political temper the bigotry which in- 
sisted upon subordinating convictions to one rule 
of faith and the scrupulousness which refused 
to conform in the absence of conviction were 
alike inexplicable. She accordingly gave her sup- 
port to the proposal of Requesens (who had 
succeeded Alva in the Spanish government of 
the Netherlands) that the revolted provinces should 
be restored to their liberties upon the under- 
standing that they returned into the fold of the 
Church. 

Although these terms were refused by the Dutch, 
Elizabeth’s caution momentarily averted the outburst 
of Philip’s anger against her. To the urgent appeals 
of the Pope that he would despatch an army to 
assist a Catholic rising in England, he responded by 
deprecating hasty action. But Gregory, whom his 
emissaries kept informed of the real state of affairs, 
knew that no time must be lost if the English people 
were ever to be restored to the Romish faith. Year 
by year the practice of conformity to the Reformed 
titual was becoming fixed. ‘The old parish priests, 
who had acquiesced in the new formularies without 
really approving them, were gradually superseded by 
Protestant clergy, whose belief in what they taught 


112 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


influenced their younger hearers. The two Universi- 
ties and the grammar-schools throughout the country 
were similarly transformed, and diffused the ideas and 
sentiments which distinguished the new faith from the 
old. Oxford especially, which had been a Romish 
stronghold at the outset of the Queen’s reign, was 
now as strongly Calvinistic, and the sons of the 
Catholic families had deserted it fora college founded 
at Douay in 1568. Since the passing of the Act of 
Uniformity and the publication of the Bull of Depo- 
sition, this college had been largely recruited from 
England, and obtained so high a reputation as a 
religious ‘‘seminary” that the Pope determined to 
employ a number of the young priests educated 
there as agents to effect the reconversion of their 
country. Although the number of these missionaries 
was at first small, they exercised a sensible influence 
in impeding that reconciliation which Elizabeth still 
sought to effect, and she was provoked by the Pope’s 
aggression into severe reprisals. Hitherto the Test 
Act had been mildly, but was now rigorously enforced, 
and Parliament (in which the Protestant element 
largely preponderated) further enacted that the land- 
ing upon English shores or the harbouring of a semi- 
nary priest should be an act of treason. To keep 
alive a feeling of disaffection to Elizabeth’s rule and 
foment a Catholic revolt in favour of the imprisoned 
queen of Scots as her successor were the main 
objects of the emissaries. In connexion with their 
efforts, a formidable plot was organised in 1576, 
under the sanction of Rome, by Don John of Austria, 
a natural son of Charles V., whom Philip had re- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 113 


cently appointed Governor of the Netherlands. 
Ambitious of kingly rank, he aspired to pacify the 
Dutch by timely concessions, and, after employing 
the forces of Spain thus set free, to effect the con- 
quest of England, and ascend the throne as the 
husband of Mary. His design was baffled by the 
formation of an alliance (known as the “ Pacification 
of Ghent”) between the Catholic and Protestant 
provinces of the Netherlands in a common effort to 
throw off the Spanish yoke, which forced him to 
renew the war. Her narrow escape from invasion, 
however, impelled Elizabeth to the active interference 
from which she had hitherto shrunk, and in 1577 she 
made a treaty with the Provinces and despatched 
troops and money to their aid. 

With this step began the long and critical strife 
between England and Spain which ended in the 
destruction of the Armada. Philp, who, on his part, 
had equally hesitated to assume the hostile attitude 
against Elizabeth which the Pope urged upon him, 
was roused at last by this overt act. He was further 
incensed by the negotiations now proceeding for her 
marriage with the Duke of Anjou, youngest son of 
Catherine de’ Medici, the consummation of which 
would have drawn England and France into close 
alliance. Attacks recently made by vessels sailing 
under the English flag upon Spanish galleons, ladem 
with the wealth of his American possessions, furnished 
fresh cause of exasperation. He accordingly agreed 
to take part in an elaborate scheme for revolutionising 
England which was organised at Rome in 1579. Its 
design embraced a simultaneous rising of the English, 

I 


I14 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Scotch, and Irish Catholics, supported by an invasion 
of Spanish troops, but was only carried into effect in 
Ireland, where 2,000 Papal mercenaries landed in 
1580 to reinforce a rebellion, headed by the Earl ot 
Desmond. But the vigour of the Lord-Deputy (Grey 
of Wilton) crushed the movement before it could 
spread. The invaders, having retreated to a fortress, 
which they were compelled to surrender, were all put 
to death; and Desmond, who took to flight, was slain 
by a native chieftain. 

No invasion of England was as yet attempted, but 
the seminary priests were augmented by a number 
of Jesuit emissaries, of whom Fathers Parsons and 
Campian were the most active. Assuming various 
disguises, they traversed the country, reviving the 
sinking hopes of the Catholics, and making several 
new converts. Magnified by rumour and panic, the 
extent of this success provoked Parliament to enact 
measures of great severity. By an Act of 1581, it 
was made unlawful to say mass in a private house ; 
and all persons pretending to absolve the Queen’s 
subjects from their allegiance, or converting them to 
the Romish faith, were, together with their dupes, 
declared guilty of high treason. The extreme penal- 
ties were not enacted, except in the case of seminary 
priests and Jesuits, who were hunted down without 
mercy, and often subjected to torture to extract con- 
fession. Father Parsons escaped by flight; but 
Campian was seized in the summer of 1581, tried 
for treason, and executed. Two hundred similar con- 
victions are estimated to have occurred during the 
next twenty years, and the number of persons con- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES, I15 


signed to languish in pestilential prisons must have 
been considerably greater. Deplorable as was the 
outburst of religious hatred which this crisis called 
forth and the suffering it entailed, its effect upon the 
national character was far from wholly mischievous. 
The bitter hostility to Elizabeth’s rule now avowed 
by the Papacy aroused not only among the extreme 
Protestants, but in that larger section of the people 
who had hitherto remained neutral, a sentiment of 
fervid patriotism, coupled with personal loyalty to 
the sovereign. On the other hand, the evidence of 
deep spiritual conviction displayed in the constancy 
of the Catholics when exposed to persecution and 
martyrdom vindicated the claims of a principle 
higher than either patriotism or loyalty. ‘Though for 
the moment maintained by the Catholic alone, the 
supremacy of conscience was ere long to be the 
watchword of the Puritan also. 

The blood of the English people was by this time 
fairly stirred for the war with Spain. The Queen’s 
caution and coolness in the struggle were put to 
shame by the boldness and warmth of her subjects. 
The volunteers who flocked to the standard of the 
Prince of Orange formed a brigade 5,000 strong. 
English ports not only harboured Dutch privateers, 
but sent forth their own vessels under the same flag 
to attack Spanish merchantmen. The money sub- 
scribed by the London merchants to replenish the 
Prince’s treasury far exceeded the dole which he 
obtained from Elizabeth. Large numbers of Flemish 
exiles had taken refuge in the Cinque Ports at the 
outset of Alva’s persecution ; and the ruin which the 

Ie 


116 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


war inflicted upon the trade of Antwerp and other 
cities drove hundreds of their citizens across the 
Channel. The hospitable welcome accorded to them 
was extended as heartily to the French Huguenots 
who fled from the persecution of the Guises. The 
tales which these exiles told of their sufferings under 
Catholic oppression, and of the fate of their brethren 
who had failed to escape, largely swelled the tide of 
Protestant feeling. 

In point of numbers and wealth, Spain was 
enormously superior to its antagonist. With his 
native inheritance Philip united the two great lord- 
ships of Milan and Naples, the unrevolted provinces 
of the Netherlands, and the rich territories of the 
New World, discovered by Columbus, and conquered 
by Cortes and Pizarro. In 1580 he acquired, by 
conquest, the kingdom of Portugal and its fertile 
colonies. His soldiers were among the best in 
Europe, and his generals renowned for their strategic 
ability. His absolute power and reckless ambition 
were only qualified by an excessive cautiousness, 
which delayed him in deliberation and crippled him 
in action. ‘The alertness of Elizabeth’s intellect and 
temper, on the other hand, stood her in goad stead ; 
and what was wanting in the material resources of 
England was made up by the enthusiasm of her Par- 
liament in maintaining the war and the daring of her 
soldiers and sailors. Before the actual outbreak of 
hostilities, the sea-faring class, especially in the western 
counties, had manifested their Protestant sympathies 
by carrying on an irregular warfare of their own. 
Obtaining letters of marque from the Huguenot 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. II7 


leaders in the first instance, the “‘sea-dogs,” as they 
were called, helped the good cause, and filled their 
pockets, by attacking and plundering the vessels of 
Catholic France. When peace was temporarily re- 
stored in this quarter, the revolt of the Netherlands 
afforded them an opportunity of assisting the Dutch 
by pillaging the Spanish galleons. From privateering 
excursions within the ‘‘ narrow seas,” they proceeded 
to bolder exploits beyond. In 1577 the greatest of 
west-country seamen, Francis Drake, undertook an 
expedition into the Pacific ocean with a single ship, 
from which, after sailing round the world, he returned 
in 1580, with a booty of gold, silver, and gems, 
valued at half a million, gathered from the South 
American coasts, of which Spain claimed the 
monopoly. Philip’s anger at this aggression was 
redoubled on learning that Elizabeth, in spite of a 
demand for Drake’s surrender, had knighted him, 
and accepted his present of jewels. 

The actual declaration of war which Philip 
threatened was delayed by the intervention of 
France in the Netherlands, where the Protestant 
remnant of the revolted provinces was still sustaining 
the contest, under the flag of William of Orange. 
The skilful diplomacy of the Duke of Parma, who 
had succeeded Don John in the Spanish command, 
had sundered the union effected by the Pacification 
of Ghent, and won back the bulk of the Catholic 
states to their former allegiance. In their despair 
the Provinces applied to France for aid, which 
Catherine agreed to give upon the understanding 
that her youngest son, the Duke of Anjou, should be 


118 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


their king. He was still negotiating for the hand of 
Elizabeth, who showed more inclination to accept 
him than any foreign suitor. The triple union of 
France, England, and the Provinces against their 
common enemy, which would have resulted from the 
marriage, was a weighty argument in its favour, but 
failed to recommend it to the English people. The 
objections which existed to the Queen’s alliance with 
a Catholic dynasty responsible for the massacre of 
St. Bartholomew’s Day found a courtly but frank 
declaration in the ‘‘Remonstrance” of Sir Philip 
Sidney, and coarser expression in the pamphlet of a 
Puritan, named Stubbs. Affecting to be unmoved by 
these manifestations, Elizabeth still dallied with the 
Duke’s suit; and the Provinces, regarding him in the 
light of a prosperous lover, formally tendered him 
their homage in 1582. But the instinct of the 
English people had justly divined his character, 
which he soon betrayed in a treacherous attempt to 
deprive his new subjects of their liberties. Foiled in 
this -scheme, he returned,. in 1583;> 40™ Biamce: 
where, after resigning his pretensions to the hand of 
Elizabeth, he died in the following year. 

The intention to invade England which Philip’s 
slowly-deliberating mind at last matured was appa- 
rent in the mustering of a great fleet of war-ships 
in the Tagus, in 1584. While the Armada was in 
process of formation, the agents of Rome were 
busily engaged in preparing a Catholic insurrection 
in England to break out on its arrival. The penal- 
ties imposed for recusancy and the martyrdom of 
the seminary priests had so far enraged the Catholics 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 11g 


against the Government that the Jesuit emissaries 
believed them to be thoroughly disloyal, and assured 
Philip that, at his summons, they would certainly rise 
in arms. In Scotland, the young King, James VI, 
weakly lent himself to a plot devised, with the con- 
nivance of the Guises, for the release of Mary from 
prison and her restoration to the throne, either alone 
or in joint sovereignty with himself. His main object 
was to escape from the Protestant lords, under whose 
control he chafed; but, having timely notice of the 
plot, they frustrated it by temporarily seizing his 
person. Other baits, however, were held out to him 
by the Guises and by Philip as soon as he regained 
his freedom, and Elizabeth had to reckon upon the 
prospect of his joining her enemies at the crisis of 
invasion. Abroad, the Protestant cause was daily 
losing ground. Parma’s able generalship had already 
quelled the revolt of half the Netherlands, and was 
gradually regaining for Spain the leading towns of 
Brabant and Flanders. In 1584, the United Provinces 
suffered an irreparable loss in the death of their great 
leader, William of Orange, by the hand of an assassin 
in the hire of Philip; and though they maintained 
the struggle with unabated courage, the chances of 
their achieving their independence seemed remote. 
In France, the Catholic party formed themselves into 
a League to prevent the accession to the throne of 
Henry of Navarre, the Protestant heir-apparent of 
Henry III., who had no issue; and made a compact 
with Philip that each would aid the other in extir- 
pating heresy from France and the Netherlands. The 
French King, who had hitherto upheld his mother’s 


I 20° POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


policy of toleration, in alarm at the power of the 
League, pretended to favour its objects, and rescinded 
the ordinances under which the Huguenots had 
escaped persecution, so that on all sides they were 
beset with enemies. 

In August, 1585, the surrender of Antwerp to 
Parma’s forces after a long siege drove the United 
Provinces to make a more urgent appeal for help to 
Elizabeth. She received their delegates favourably, 
declining to accept the protectorate which they 
offered, but promising to send them 8,o00 men, 
under the command of Lord Leicester, in con- 
sideration of their placing the towns of Flushing and 
Brill into her hands as a security for the expenses 
incurred. To these terms they agreed; and Leicester, 
accompanied by the flower of the English chivalry, 
entered on the campaign with a confidence which his 
conduct of it wholly failed to justify. His personal 
courage and other soldierlike qualities were marred 
by his incapacity as a general, and by the arrogance 
which he displayed in his relations with the Dutch 
Government. Owing partly to the dissensions thence 
resulting and partly to the parsimony shown by the 
Queen in the supply of munitions and stores, the 
English contingent achieved few feats of arms; the 
most memorable being the rashly-heroic onset of a 
band of 500 men against a force of six times their 
number, wherein the life of Sir Philip Sidney was reck- 
lessly wasted. An expedition to the Spanish Main, 
undertaken at the same time by Drake, with a fleet of 
twenty-five vessels, accomplished, on the other hand, 
a brilliant success. The cities of Carthagena and 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. Tat 


St. Domingo were burned, in retaliation for the cruel- 
ties inflicted by the Inquisition upon Englishmen 
who had fallen into its hands; and a rich booty of 
treasure was carried off from the coasts of Florida 
and Cuba. 

In 1586 Elizabeth won a diplomatic victory over 
Spain by means of a secret undertaking with the 
Scottish King that his succession to the English 
throne should be secured, in consideration of his 
aiding her against Philip by suppressing any Catholic 
outbreak in the north. But though thus partially 
protected, she was still in danger. The intrigues of 
the Jesuit emissaries in England had succeeded in 
forming plots to assassinate her. ‘The discovery of 
these plots led to the infliction of fresh severities on 
the Catholics, and the formation of a Protestant 
association for the Queen’s safety. Parliament re- 
sponded loyally to the national feeling by passing an 
Act which excluded from the succession any one 
who incited to rebellion, or sought to injure the 
reigning sovereign. This was expressly aimed at 
Mary Stuart, whose protracted captivity had not 
abated her ambition or love of intrigue. Her ap- 
proval had just been given to a conspiracy, headed 
by a young Catholic, named Babington, which com- 
passed the Queen’s death and her own elevation to 
the throne. The seizure of her correspondence 
having proved her complicity, a commission of peers 
was appointed to try her at Fotheringay Castle, 
and she was found guilty. Parliament petitioned 
Elizabeth to execute the sentence of death, and its 
prayer was supported by her Council and echoed by 


122 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


the popular voice. For three months the Queen 
turned a deaf ear to these appeals, till they became 
too urgent to be resisted, and the warrant was signed. 
Mary was beheaded on February 8, 1587, retaining 
her self-possession, and affirming her unshaken 
attachment to the Catholic faith. 

The immediate effect of this sentence was to aggra- 
vate the perils which surrounded Elizabeth, and her 
anger vented itself upon the ministers who had per- 
suaded her against her will. Mary had made over 
her rights of succession to Philip as her nearest 
Catholic heir, and in him the hopes of her adherents 
now centred. The Pope (Sixtus V.), incensed at the 
loss of so valuable an instrument, urged the King no 
longer to delay the invasion of England. The Armada, 
so long preparing in the Tagus, was now nearly ready, 
and Parma was instructed to concentrate all the 
troops and transports that he could muster at Dun- 
kirk to reinforce the invading army. But another 
postponement of the expedition, occasioned by the 
doubtful attitude of France, gave Drake a fresh 
opportunity of (in his own phrase) ‘‘singeing the 
Spanish King’s beard.” With a fleet of thirty barks 
he sailed in April, 1587, for the harbour of Cadiz, 
where he destroyed a number of galleys and store- 
ships, and, after pursuing the same ravage along the 
coast, venturing at last into the Tagus itself, where he 
attacked and plundered a richly-laden merchantman 
of great size. This audacious raid delayed the sailing 
of the Armada until the spring of 1588, when the 
success of the Duke of Guise in France having re- 
lieved Philip’s fear of a French invasion of the 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 123 


Netherlands, he gave orders that the expedition 
should set sail. 

About half of the 132 vessels of which the Armada 
consisted were of vast bulk and the rest heavily 
armed. Provided with 2,500 cannon and ample stores, 
they were manned by 8,oo0 seamen and 22,000 
soldiers, led by skilful officers under the nominal 
command of the duke of Medina Sidonia. Parma’s 
force of 17,000 men was stationed at Dunkirk, where 
transports had been collected for their passage across 
the Channel as soon as the Armada was sighted. 
England, on her side, put forth all her strength. 
Beacons were fixed on every height to be fired as 
signals when the Armada came in view. At Tilbury 
a large camp was formed, where the army, under 
the command of Leicester, mustered 22,000 foot and 
2,000 horse. Smaller forces of militia were stationed 
at different points along the western and eastern 
coasts. A special levy of 20,o00 men was raised for 
the protection of the Queen’s person, and London 
contributed its trainbands, numbering 10,000 strong. 
The fleet, which was augmented by many volunteers, 
consisted of eighty vessels, far inferior in size and ton- 
nage to the Spanish ships, but more than a match for 
them in speed and lightness, and manned by 9,000 
tried mariners under such captains as Drake, Hawkins, 
and Frobisher, with Lord Howard of Effingham for 
Admiral. But strongest of all the nation’s defences 
was the resolute spirit which animated it as one man. 
Differences of social grades and religious opinion 
were ignored in the presence of a common danger. 
The assurances given to Philip that the English 


I24 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Catholics would welcome and join his troops were 
falsified by the event. Side by side with the flagship 
of the Admiral, who himself belonged to a great 
Catholic family, were vessels contributed by other 
peers foremost in the Catholic ranks, while the gentry 
attested equal loyalty and patriotism by marching at 
the head of their tenantry. 

The memorable story of Lord Howard’s naval 
victory off Gravelines, his pursuit of the retreating 
Spaniards northwards, and the terrible storm which 
decided the fate of the Armada is too familiar to be 
here repeated. It will suffice to say that of the 
vessels which composed this vast armament only fifty 
succeeded in reaching Spain, with a fever-stricken 
remnant of I0,ooo men. 

Foremost of the advantages which the victorious 
issue of her great struggle with Spain brought to 
England was the triumphant assurance of her un- 
shaken national unity. The vindication of the tolerant 
policy which the Queen had steadily pursued until 
driven to deviate from it by the aggressions of Rome 
was abundantly complete; and justified her protest 
to the soldiers at Tilbury that she had always, “ under 
God, placed her chiefest strength and safeguard in the 
loyal hearts and goodwill of her subjects.” Scarcely 
less important was the demonstration of England’s 
title to rank as a great naval power, and the cor- 
responding degradation of Spain from its boasted 
pre-eminence. Philip, indeed, bore the loss of the 
Armada with proud equanimity, and declared that he 
could readily despatch another as large ; but from this 
time forth his prestige was impaired and the fortune 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. I25 


of his empire began to decline. The subsequent in- 
cidents of the war with Spain, which was protracted 
until the death of Philip in 1598, do not call for 
notice in these pages as—though full of interest in 
themselves—they exerted no fresh influence upon our 
historical development. 

In France, the course of events rendered it impera- 
tive for Elizabeth to assist the Huguenot cause. After 
regaining his independence by the assassination of 
the Duke of Guise, Henry III. was himself assassi- 
nated in 1589, when Henry of Navarre became King 
of France. Opposed by the League and by Spain 
simultaneously, he maintained a gallant contest with 
little permanent success until 1593, when a national 
reaction in his favour set in, of which he took advan- 
tage to effect a reconciliation of parties by announcing 
his intention to embrace Catholicism, while securing 
full toleration to the faith which he abandoned. This 
politic tergiversation excited Elizabeth to a momen- 
tary outburst of anger, but she was appeased by 
Henry’s proposal of an offensive and defensive 
alliance against Spain, in which the United Provinces 
eventually joined. 

The death of Philip relieved England of her 
strongest and most implacable foe; and the great war 
upon whose issue her freedom had depended was 
scarcely concluded when Elizabeth herself passed 
away. The opening of her reign found the bulk of 
Englishmen Catholics and the eventual establishment 
of the Reformed faith a remote probability. The 
close not only found Protestantism firmly established, 
but its extreme type of Puritanism in the ascendant. 


126 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Among the causes to which this remarkable change 
must be assigned, the pressure of foreign aggression 
stands foremost. No other stimulus could so effec- 
tually have developed the sterner virtues of our 
Teutonic race.or welded the nation into so solid a 
union. ; 


POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 127 


CHAPTER VI. 


Miscellaneous foreign influences from the accession of 
Edward VI. to the death of Elizabeth. 


THE influx of Dutch and French fugitives into 
England, which has been more than once referred to 
in the preceding chapters as contributing to swell 
the current of Protestant feeling and bring the 
Puritan party in the Church into fuller sympathy with 
Continental Calvinism,-must be further regarded as 
a considerable accession of racial elements. The 
number of refugees from the Netherlands alone was 
estimated (by one of Philip’s resident ambassadors 
here) at 10,000 in 1560, and after the persecution of 
Alva and the capture of Antwerp by Parma it must 
have immensely increased. ‘A third of the merchants 
and manufacturers of the ruined city are said to have 
found a refuge on the banks of the Thames.”! 
Similar immigrations of French Huguenots occurred 
at short intervals during the reigns of Edward VI. 
and Elizabeth, their number often amounting to 
several hundreds ata time. They included men and 
women of all ranks and callings, a large proportion 
being skilled artisans. The landings usually took 
place upon the eastern coast—Rye, in Sussex, and 
Dover, Deal, and Sandwich, in Kent, being the ports 


' Green’s ‘* History of the English People,” vol. ii. p. 389. 


128 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


most frequented. There some settled, while others 
passed further inland. In some of the Kentish 
towns, especially Canterbury and Sandwich, the 
foreign refugees formed recognised colonies. Many 
intermarried with English families, and eventually 
became absorbed into the native population. In not 
a few cases certain exiles can be identified as the 
founders of distinguished families, notably those of 
Grote, Van Sittart, Van Mildert, Bouverie, Pusey, 
Tyssen, Cosway, Houblon, and Hugessen. Vestiges 
of these immigrations are still traceable in some of our 
Cinque-port towns, such as the frequency of foreign 
names, the prevalence of Flemish or ‘‘ crow-stepped ” 
gables and Dutch-tiled fire-places in the old houses of 
Deal and Sandwich, and the local term of ‘ polders,” 
which is applied to the marshes of the Stour. The 
handicrafts which the refugees brought with them 
made a sensible addition to the limited stock of 
native industries. Cloth-making, silk-weaving, and 
baize-working were thus introduced, the manufacture 
of Delph pottery was naturalised, and a fresh stimulus 
given to horticulture. The first market-gardens 
formed in England are ascribed to the skill of Flemish 
settlers in the neighbourhood of Sandwich, A 
survival of their residence there is the cultivation of 
* canary-grass,” which is said to be “‘ almost peculiar” 
to that district. Large numbers of the Flemings 
settled in or near London, chiefly in the districts of 
Bermondsey, Southwark, Bow, and Wandsworth. 
From their congregation in one quarter of Bermondsey, 
it acquired the name of the “Borgney, or Petty 
Bergundy.” Joiners’ work, felt-making, tanning, 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 129 


brewing, and dyeing were their principal crafts. The 
first dye-works in England were established at Bow 
by a Fleming named Kepler, and “ Bow-dyed ” cloth 
became highly esteemed. The manufacture of brass 
plates for kitchen vessels and of pendulum or Dutch 
clocks was carried on by some Flemings at Wands- 
worth. Some of the French settlers brought with 
them the arts of making arras and tapestry and of 
printing paper-hangings, while others were skilful 
workers in metal. A minority of the foreign refugees, 
who were men of more substance, became prosperous 
city merchants. ‘Thirty-eight of them subscribed the 
sum of £5,o0o0 to the voluntary loan raised by 
Elizabeth in 1588. 

Similar settlements were made in different parts of 
England. Norwich at an earlier period had been 
greatly indebted to the immigration of Flemish 
weavers and cloth-makers, but, at the instance of 
certain of the local guilds, had repaid the boon by 
imposing restrictions upon their industry which drove 
them elsewhere. <A gradual decay of prosperity was 
the consequence, which so seriously alarmed the 
citizens that in 1564 they petitioned the Duke of 
Norfolk to induce a number of the refugees to settle 
there. A band of three hundred Dutch and Walloon 
families responded to his invitation, and speedily 
restored the city to its pristine wealth. The manu- 
facture of serges, bombazines, and similar stuffs, the 
crafts of striping and flowering silks and damasks, 
and of making beaver and felt hats, which they 
introduced, became the staple trades of Norwich. 
Colchester owed much of its prosperity to the manu 

K 


130 | POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


facture of sayes and serges, introduced by Flemish 
workmen. Worcester, Evesham, Kidderminster, 
Glastonbury, and Stroud were similarly enriched by 
their settlement. The “coatings” for which Man- 
chester, Bolton, and Halifax became famous were 
originally manufactured there by Flemings. The 
name of ‘“ walken-mill,” which is often used for 
‘“fulling-mill” in old descriptions of property, is 
obviously derived from the Flemish walke. Lace- 
making was introduced by refugees from Valenciennes, 
Alengon, and Antwerp, who settled at Cranfield, in 
Bedfordshire, and Honiton and Colyton, in Devon- 
shire, whence the manufacture gradually spread over 
a large area. The prevalence of Flemish and French 
names in the districts where it is carried on still 
testifies to its origin. A band of metal-workers from 
Liege established themselves near Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
and acquired a high reputation for the excellence of 
their steel swords and edge-tools. Glass-works were 
founded in the same neighbourhood by some of their 
fellow-countrymen, and the manufacture still flourishes. 
Other Flemish metal-workers settled at Sheffield under 
the patronage of Lord Shrewsbury, upon the under- 
standing that they would instruct English apprentices 
in their art. To the fulfilment of this pledge the 
great improvement soon manifested in the trade of 
the town is attributable. The art of herring-curing, 
of which the Dutch had hitherto a monopoly, was 
introduced by a colony of Flemish refugees of the 
seafaring class at Yarmouth, in 1568, and completes 
the catalogue of industries which England owes to 
their enterprise. 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 131 
Wherever the refugees settled in large numbers, 
churches were either assigned for their accommoda- 
tion or founded by themselves, in which services 
were conducted by their own pastors. Those of 
Austin Friars and St. Anthony’s Hospital in London, 
and the ‘‘ Undercroft,” or crypt, of Canterbury 
Cathedral, were the largest. ‘The French church at 
Southampton, which still exists, was converted from 
a disused hospital, for the use of a band of exiles who 
had crossed from Dieppe, Valenciennes, and the 
Channel Islands in the reign of Edward VI. At 
Dover, Sandwich, Rye, Yarmouth, and Norwich they 
were allowed to assemble in the parish churches at 
stated hours, or special buildings were set apart for 
their worship. 

The chief influences upon the national thought and 
sentiment derived from German and French sources 
have already been considered in connexion with the 
development of the Reformed faith. Side by side 
with these, and equally profound, although less ex- 
tensive in their operation, the influences of. the 
Renaissance, of which Italy was still the main foun- 
tain, were silently exerting their force. The magnetic 
attraction of high intellectual culture, to which the 
Italians were first sensitive, had already subdued the 
other Latin nations to its sway, and now began to 
fascinate the Teutonic races also. In literature, in 
the arts, in modes of thought, of taste, and speech, 
in morals, manners, and habits of life, the pervasive 
spirit of “humanism” made itself felt. Not excluding 
other influences, but subtly intermingling with them, 
it assumed different forms according to the characters 

K 2 


132 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


of those whom it affected. The chivalrous and all 
accomplished Sir Philip Sidney presents the ideal 
type of the cultivated Englishman of this period. At 
once statesman, soldier, courtier, poet, romancist, and 
critic, patron and friend of philosophers, scholars, and 
men of letters, whether native or foreign, he conse- 
crated his culture to none but noble ends, and 
maintained in his life and death an exalted standard 
of patriotism, courage, courtesy, and self-sacrifice. In 
such a character as Sir Walter Raleigh’s, the refine- 
ment of the scholar and the finesse of the courtier 
were blended with the adventurous daring of the 
““ sea-dog” and the indifference to human life of the 
‘soldier of fortune. In natures of a lower type, the 
‘superficial varnish of Italian accomplishments, readily 
-acquired by a year or two of travel, was too often 
accompanied by a deeper taint of moral corruption, 
contracted amidst the vicious society of the great 
cities. The wickedness of ‘‘an Italianate Englishman,” 
indeed, became proverbial in the very country of 
which that hybrid was the product. 

The same mixture of good and evil elements may 
‘be discerned in the influence of Italian culture upon 
Elizabethan literature. Early in the reign the study 
of the Italian classics was in vogue at Cambridge.! 
Castiglione’s famous treatise on the ideal of statesman- 
ship, “ Del Cortegiano,” was translated by Thomas 
Hobby in 1556-61, and Guicciardini’s “ History 
of Italy” by Geoffrey Fenton in 1579. Arthur 
Brooke, William Paynter, and George Turberville 


1 és 


Letter-book of Gabriel Harvey” (Camden Society’s 
Publications, N.S., vol. 33, pp. 78-9). 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 133 


put forth translations of Boccaccio, Bandello, and 
other Italian novelists, which were the precursors of 
a long series of such publications. Brooke’s metrical 
versions of Bandello’s “‘Romeus and Juliet” is note- 
worthy as having been the groundwork of Shake- 
speare’s immortal tragedy. Some of Bandello’s other 
tales are as impure as this is innocent, and his 
English translators showed little discrimination in 
their selection from them. ‘The mischief for which 
they and similar writers were responsible was the 
theme of an eloquent protest by Roger Ascham, in 
his ‘“ Schoolmaster,” a treatise on education published 
in 1570. His warnings were repeated and enforced 
by John Lyly, in the form of a moral tale which, 
borrowing its title of ‘‘ Euphues” from a term employed 
by Ascham, appeared in 1579. The adoption in 
this work of an over-refined, fantastic mode of speech, 
abounding in conceits and verbal subtleties, which 
had come into fashion as an importation from Italy 
and Spain, gave it the popular name of euphuism. 
The richer treasures of Italian literature were drawn 
upon by Edmund Spenser, who at an early age 
translated some of the ‘‘ Visions of Petrarch,” and by 
George Gascoigne, whose translation of Ariosto’s 
comedy, ‘‘ Gli Suppositi,” was represented at Gray’s 
Inn in 1566. Spenser’s first published poem, ‘The 
Shepherd’s Calendar,” which appeared in 1579, showed 
his indebtedness to French literature also, his eleventh 
and twelfth eclogues being versions of two by Clement 
Marot, the Huguenot poet; but in the “ Faerie 
Queene,” which he soon afterwards commenced, he 
reverted to Italian models. Sir Philip Sidney’s 


134 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


‘¢ Arcadia,” which, though not published until 1590, 
was written in 1580-1, was suggested partly by 
Italian, partly by Spanish literature, belonging to the 
school of pastoral romance, of which the “ Arcadia” 
of Sannazaro and the “Diana Enamorada” of 
Montemayor, both medleys cf prose and verse, were 
prototypes. Among translations from the Italian 
may be mentioned one by George Whetstone from 
the “ Hecatommithi” of Giraldo Cinthio, a collection 
of tales whence Shakespeare drew the plot of 
“Measure for Measure.” A series of novelettes 
which Robert Greene the dramatist put forth between 
1584 and 1592, to judge from the prevalence of 
Italian names in them, may be referred to the same 
national source. The plot of his ‘ Pandosto” is 
identical with that of Shakespeare’s ‘‘ Winter’s Tale.” 
An English translation of a German “History of 
Dr. Faustus” supplied Christopher Marlowe with the 
materials of his ‘‘Tragical History of Dr. Faustus,” 
the most powerful drama of the pre-Shakespearian 
stage, which appeared in 1589. 

In 1590 appeared the first three books of Spenser’s 
‘“‘Faerie Queene.” ‘Though substantially original in 
its conception, and essentially English in its tone and 
diction, its obligations to the two great romantic 
poets of Italy, Ariosto and Tasso, cannot be over- 
looked. Many of its episodes are imitated or para- 
phrased from passages in the “Orlando” and 
“Gerusalemme.” The nine-lined stanza which Spenser 
here initiated was a modification of the French form 
of balade called “‘ Chant Royal,” made by adding an 
Alexandrine of twelve syllables to its eight ten- 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 135 


syllabled lines. His ‘Complaints,” a volume of 
miscellaneous poems, published in the following year, 
included a revised version of his early translations 
from Petrarch, and paraphrases of some poems by 
Joachim du Bellay, a popular lyrist of ibs French 
Renaissance. 

The influence of the Italian lyrists is Aiaaent: in 
the sonnets of Samuel Daniel, published in 1592 
under the title of “ Delia.” In 1595 appeared his 
historical poem on ‘‘ The Civille Warres between the 
Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke,” which, besides 
being composed in the offava rima of Boccaccio, 
contains several paraphrases from the Italian poets. 
In the last decade of Elizabeth’s reign complete 
translations appeared of Ariosto and Tasso. ‘The 
‘Orlando Furioso” was translated by Sir John 
Harrington in 1591; the “‘ Gerusalemme” by Richard 
Carew in 1594, and by Edward Fairfax in1600. The 
last-named translation has survived to our own day for 
the sake of its graceful and harmonious versification. 
The Huguenot poet, Du Bartas, who, though now 
forgotten, then enjoyed the highest celebrity, found 
three or four English translators, of whom _ the 
‘ silver-tongued” Joshua Sylvester is the best known. 
Another French writer of enduring fame, the great 
essayist, Montaigne, was first ‘done into English” 
in the last year of Elizabeth’s reign by John Florio, 
a teacher of languages at Oxford, who had already 
published translations of Italian proverbs. His 
version of Montaigne is memorable as one of the 
few books known to have belonged to Shakespeare, 
whose familiarity with it is shown by a passage in 


136 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


‘““The Tempest” (act il, scene 1), obviously based 
upon its language. 

The extent to which foreign influences directly and 
indirectly affected the marvellous development of 
dramatic literature which marked this period can 
only be briefly indicated. The Elizabethan drama 
may be regarded as an Italian revival of the classical 
drama, modified by the conditions of its trans- ~ 
plantation to a different climate. ‘This character is 
clearly stamped upon the tragedies which first took 
possession of the English stage. That of ‘‘ Gorboduc,” 
the production of Thomas, Lord Buckhurst, and 
Thomas Norton, which was acted before the Queen 
in 1562, was written in the blank verse introduced 
from Italy by Lord Surrey, and although the plot 
was founded upon an early British legend, the 
language was modelled upon the style of Seneca, 
a favourite author of the Renaissance. The subjects 
of Edward’s “Damon and Pythias” (1565) and 
Whetstone’s ‘Promos and Cassandra” (1578) suffi- 
ciently speak for themselves. John Lyly (the author 
of ‘“ Euphues”), who took the lead in catering for 
the dramatic taste of the Court, chose classical themes 
for most of his plays and pageants. His successor, 
Peele, commenced by following in the same path, 
though he subsequently deserted it to become the 
precursor of Shakespeare as an historical playwright. 
As the taste for theatrical entertainments spread from 
the Court to the people, the dramatists necessarily 
took a wider range in their choice of subjects. 
Although classical themes were by no means 
abandoned, the Renaissance literature of Italy and 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. IaF 


Spain provided a larger stock of attractive plots that 
could be turned to account. Thomas Kyd’s 
“Jeronimo,” or “Spanish Tragedy,” and Marlowe’s 
“Jew of Malta” were among the first successful 
attempts to dramatise the violent and powerful 
situations which some of these stories furnished. 
But it was reserved for the greatest representative 
of English genius to attest at once the abundant 
resources of this literature for the service of the 
stage and his own inexhaustible power of creating 
new worlds, peopled with living beings, out of the 
bare outlines of character and motive which he 
borrowed and adapted. 

“ It cannot be shown,” says a critic of authority, 
“that in any one instance Shakespeare took the 
trouble to invent a plot for himself.”! Passing by 
the series of historical plays, for the materials of 
which he was indebted either to Plutarch in Sir 
Thomas North’s translation of Amyot’s version, or 
to the chronicles of MHollinshed and Hall, his 
fictitious creations amount to twenty, of which 
thirteen can certainly be traced (though for the most 
part by intermediate channels) to foreign sources. 
The Italian originals of ‘‘Romeo and Juliet,” 
‘““ Measure for Measure,” and ‘‘ The Winter’s Tale” 
have already been indicated. The ‘‘ Hecatommithi”’ 
of Giraldo Cinthio furnished the plot of “ Othello” 
also. Bandello’s ‘‘ Novelle” supplied that of ‘‘ Twelfth 
Night” and (in conjunction with Ariosto’s “ Orlando ”) 
that of “Much Ado About Nothing.” The “Taming 


1 Shaw’s ‘* History of English Literature,” Patao: 


138 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


of the Shrew” was adapted from an earlier piece 
founded upon Gascoigne’s translation of Ariosto’s 
“Gli Suppositi.” A story in Boccaccio’s “ De- 
camerone” was the original of “ All’s Well that Ends 
Well.” The “Il Pecarone” of Giovanni Fiorentino, 
among other sources, gave birth to “The Merchant 
of Venice” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” 
A comedy of Plautus suggested the motive of “A 
Comedy of Errors.” ‘The Two Gentlemen of 
Verona” appears to be based upon a translation 
of Montemayors “La Diana.” The groundwork 
of the tragedy of ‘‘ Hamlet,” which may perhaps 
be regarded as a combination of history and 
fiction, was derived from the Chronicle of Saxo- 
Grammaticus and a translation from the French of 
Belleforest. 

Besides the direct obligation to foreign sources 
thus manifest in the structure of Shakespeare’s 
greatest works, it is impossible to overlook many 
indirect evidences of his sensibility to the foreign in- 
fluences which were agitating the England of his 
time. No one can doubt the obvious contemporary 
significance of such language as he puts into the 
mouth of King John addressing the Papal Legate, 
Pandulph :— 


From the mouth of England 
Add thus much more,—That no Italian priest 
Shall tithe or toll in our dominions ; 
But as we under Heaven are Supreme head, .... 
So tell the Pope; all reverence set apart, 
To him, and his usurp’d authority. 


Equally unmistakable is the political intention 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 139 


of the stirring words with which the play con- 
cludes :— 


This England never did (nor never shall) 

Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, 

But when it first did help to wound itself. ... 
Come the three corners of the world in arms, 

And we shall shock them : nought shall make us rue 
If England to itself do rest but true. 


His emphatic allusions to England’s insular security 
and the fervour of the patriotic apostrophes with 
which he credits the great Englishmen of past ages 
far transcend the limits of mere dramatic appropriate- 
ness, and would lose half their force if their oblique 
reference to the events of his own day were ignored. 
“©The Comedy of Errors,” one of his earliest works, 
contains pointed allusions in a satirical vein to the 
salient characteristics of England’s foreign neigh- 
bours,—to France, distracted with civil war, “her 
forehead armed and reverted, making war against 
her hair”; and to ‘‘the hot breath of Spain,” unto 
which the gems of the Indies were “declining their 
rich aspect” (act ill, scene 2). His estimate of the 
prevalent affectation of foreign euphuism is signified 
in the ridiculous parts assigned to Armado and 
Holofernes in “ Love’s Labour’s Lost,” another work 
of his youth. The incisive portraiture of national 
types which his maturer works exhibit only occasion- 
ally possess this special significance, but it would be 
difficult to mistake the reflection upon Spanish pride 
conveyed in the Prince of Arragon’s humiliation 
(“Merchant of Venice,” act ii, scene 9), or the 


I40 POST NORMAN BERITAIN. 


censure of Italian perfidy and craft in the characters 
of Iago and Iachimo. 

Spenser is the only other great Elizabethan in 
whose writings similar traces of susceptibility to the 
action of foreign influences are sufficiently marked 
to deserve notice. His strong Protestant convictions 
and Puritan sympathies were avowed in his “ Shep- 
heardes Calendar,” an early work, in which he 
applauded the course of Archbishop Grindal (under 
the anagram of Algrind), who had incurred Elizabeth’s 
displeasure for encouraging ‘‘prophesyings” or clerical 
meetings for Biblical discussion. ‘The same bias is 
apparent in the references to the religious contro- 
versies of his time which abound in “The Faerie 
Queene.” The Red Cross knight, who in the first 
book personifies the religion of England, having been 
temporarily parted from his companion, Una, or 
Truth, by the wiles of the Evil Spirit, Archimago, is 
deceived by the semblance of Duessa, a ‘‘ woman 
clothed in scarlet,” who assumes the aspect of Fidessa, 
or the True Faith. In the fifth book (cantos nine and 
ten), Spenser illustrated his meaning more pointedly 
by making Duessa a type of Mary Stuart, the repre- 
sentative and instrument of the Church of Rome, and 
urging the political necessity that existed for her exe- 
cution. ‘The allusion was so readily understood, that 
on the publication of this part of the work in 1596, 
James VI. of Scotland endeavoured to subject the 
poet to prosecution. ‘‘ Many references,” of the same 
kind, “in their own time not in the least obscure, to 
affairs of England, Ireland, France, Spain, Belgium,”! 


1 Morley’s ‘‘ First Sketch of English Literature,”’ p. 456. 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. I4I 


may be read beneath the surface of Spenser’s 
allegory. 

In the theological literature of this period the 
presence of foreign influences is distinctly traceable. 
The Calvinistic sympathies of Cranmer and _ his 
fellow Reformers found expression in the Book of 
Common Prayer, which they issued in 1549. A 
revised edition appeared in 1552. A translation by 
Nicholas Udall of the ‘‘ Paraphrase” of the New 
Testament composed by Erasmus was published in 
two volumes in 1548 and 1549. Miles Coverdale, 
who wrote a preface to the second volume, was the 
translator from the German of a selection of hymns, 
which he entitled “‘ Spiritual Songs.” The ‘‘ Geneva 
Bible,” a translation commenced by Whittingham and 
other Protestant exiles at Geneva during the reign 
of Mary, was completed and published in 1560, with 
a dedication to Elizabeth. It first introduced the 
division of chapters into verses which has ever since 
been adopted. Whittingham, who became Dean of 
Durham, was the brother-in-law of Calvin and a 
fervent disciple of his teaching. The Geneva Bible 
was the text-book of the Puritan party, as distin- 
guished from the “ Bishops’ Bible,” which was a trans- 
lation entrusted by Archbishop Parker to fifteen 
divines (of whom many were bishops) in 1564, and 
published as the authorised version of the Church 
of England in 1568. It did not, however, supersede 
the Geneva version, which counted for no less than 
sixty out of eighty-five editions of the Bible that 
Were printed” in «the “relgn’ of Elizabeth?=" The 
“Institutes” of Calvin were translated by Thomas 


142 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Norton in 1561, and passed through five editions. 
“Norton was one of the contributors to the version 
of the Psalms put forth by “Sternhold, Hopkins and 
others” in 1562, and appended to the Book of 
Common Prayer. 

In 1587 a translation of a treatise upon the truth 
of Christianity by Philip Du Plessis Mornay, one of 
the leaders of the Huguenot party, and their envoy 
at the Court of Elizabeth, was published by Arthur 
Golding. Barnaby Googe’s translations of an Italian 
polemic against the Papal see, entitled “‘ The Zodiac 
of Life,” and of a Latin work by Kirchmeyer, on the 
same subject, called ‘The Popish Kingdom,” de- 
serve passing mention. 

The arts which flourished in England during this 
period owed their chief lustre to the stimulus of 
foreign genius. Sir Antonio Moro, a native of 
Utrecht, who had studied in Italy and Spain, after 
Holbein, the most masterly portrait-painter of his 
time, visited England during the reign of Mary, 
whose picture he was commissioned to paint for 
Philip II. of Spain before their marriage. He re- 
mained here during her reign, and painted several 
portraits of her and of the leading personages about 
the court, but withdrew to the Netherlands at her 
death. Lucas de Heere, a Flemish painter of repu- 
tation, who also devoted himself to portraiture, was 
the first to attract attention at the Court of Elizabeth. 
Several of his works, including more than one por- 
trait of the Queen, are preserved. Federigo Zucchero, 
an artist of the Roman school, scarcely less dis- 
tinguished than his elder brother, Taddeo, arrived 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 143 


in England in 1574. Portraits by his hand are ex- 
tant of Elizabeth, of Mary, Queen of Scots, Sir 
Francis Walsingham, and other celebrities of the 
period. Henry Cornelius Vroom, a native of Haar- 
lem, was employed to design a set of representations 
in tapestry of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, com- 
missioned by the Lord High Admiral. The tapestry, 
which subsequently decorated the House of Lords, 
was unfortunately destroyed in the fire of 1834. 
Marc Gheeraedts, or Gerhard, a Flemish portrait- 
painter of merit, came on a visit to England about 
the year 1580, and found such abundant occupation 
that he remained here until his death in 1635. The 
beginning of a native school of pictorial art, which 
dates from this reign, may be traced to the study of 
the great foreign masters whose visits have been 
chronicled. Nicholas Hilliard, a jeweller and minia- 
ture-painter in high esteem with his contemporaries 
(born in 1547, died 1619), was an avowed imitator of 
Holbein. Isaac Oliver (died 1617), whose beautiful 
miniatures are probably more highly valued now than 
they were in his own time, was a pupil of Hilliard, 
and also studied under Zucchero. 

In the arts of illuminating on vellum, engraving 
on precious stones and cameo-cutting, foreign arti- 
ficers were chiefly employed. Petruccio Ubaldini, an 
Italian, was in great repute at the Court of Elizabeth 
for his illumination of books and rolls. A French 
artist, named Le Moyne, or Morgues, resident in 
England in the same reign, illustrated a work on 
Florida at the charge of Sir Walter Raleigh. Valerio 
Belli, or Vincentino, an Italian, was an eminent 


144 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


engraver of gems and cameo-cutter, many of whose 
works were extant in the last century.! 

The new impulse given to architectural design by 
the arrival of Geronimo da Treviso and Giovanni di 
. Padua, in the reign of Henry VIII., continued to 
modify the style of all the important buildings 
erected during the three following reigns. ‘The first 
strictly Italian building in England is believed to 
have been Somerset House, which Giovanni di Padua 
was commissioned to erect for the Protector, Duke 
of Somerset. He is also credited with the design of 
Longleat, in Wiltshire, which was commenced in 1567. 
In this and other great houses of the same period, 
which are typical specimens of Elizabethan archi- 
tecture, the features of Tudor-Gothic are skilfully 
blended with those of the classical Renaissance. Of 
native artists who adopted this method of design, 
Robert and Huntingdon Smithson and John Thorpe 
have been recorded as the most eminent. A more 
rigid conception of the classical revival was enter- 
tained by an architect of Cleves, named Theodore 
Havens, who was employed early in the reign of 
Elizabeth by Dr. Caius to execute the additions 
that he made to the college in Cambridge which 
bears his name. The internal decoration of the 
chief buildings erected attests to the prevalence of 
Renaissance ideas; cupids and other mythological 
figures being commonly introduced by way of orna- 
ment, and Latin mottoes inscribed upon the walls. 

In music alone, of all the arts, native genius appears 


1 Walpole’s ‘‘ Anecdotes of Painting in England,” &c., 
vol. i. pp. 276-8. 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. I45 


to have relied most upon its own unassisted strength, 
and to have taken the first place in public estimation. 
The works, however, of one of the great madri- 
galists of the Elizabethan period, Thomas Morley, 
“‘certainly betray a familiar acquaintance with the 
Italian and Flemish masters,” and it is known that 
his contemporary, John Dowland, who was ‘‘the 
rarest musician” of his age, “travelled much in 
France, Italy, and Germany.” ! 

The predominance of Italian models of taste in 
cultivated English circles during this period was 
visible in the gardens which surrounded the mansions 
built by the Elizabethan nobles and gentry. They 
were usually laid out in terraces, with flights of steps 
at each end, and in alleys and walks lined with yews 
fantastically lopped; statues, vases, fountains, and 
grottoes being interspersed. Bacon’s essays om 
“Building” and “‘ Gardens,” though probably written 
after the accession of James I., may be noticed 
here as affording clear indications of the accepted 
standard of fashion in such matters. The number 
of indigenous garden-flowers and fruits was con- 
siderably increased during this period by importa-. 
tions from the Netherlands, Italy, and Greece. 
The Flemish refugees who settled in the eastern 
counties are credited with having brought over the 
gillyflower and carnation. New varieties of hops 
and cherries were also brought into Kent from the 
Netherlands. Italy furnished us with choicer grafts 
of plums, and Zante with currants. The _ intro- 


1 ** Pictorial History of England,” vol, iii. p. 563. 
L 


146 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


duction of Dutch clover made a valuable addition 
to our agricultural crops. 

Fresh impulse was given to mining by the arrival 
of a number of German and Dutch experts (of 
whom Cornelius de Vos, Daniel Hechstetter, and 
Christopher Schutz were the leaders) during the © 
reign of Elizabeth, from whom they obtained letters 
patent to dig for alum, calamine, and copperas, as 
well as the precious metals, quicksilver and copper. 
Some of these experts were employed as assayers in 
the Royal Mint. The first manufacture of cannon in 
England is attributed by a Sussex tradition to Ralph 
Hogge, resident in 1543 at Buxted, who is said to 
have been assisted by French and Flemish gunsmiths. 
According to other authorities, iron ordnance was 
first manufactured here by a Frenchman in the 
reign of Edward VI. Gunpowder is said to have 
been imported by the Hanse merchants until early 
in the reign of Elizabeth, when it began to be made 
in England. The exclusive privileges of that great 
mercantile corporation secured to them by a suc- 
cession of royal charters, to the serious detriment of 
native commerce, received a severe shock during the 
reign of Edward VI. Upon an information brought 
against them by an English Company of Merchant 
Adventurers (which had been incorporated by Henry 
VII., and increased in wealth and importance) that 
they had violated the conditions of their monopoly, 
the Council to whom the question was referred 
decided against them, and adjudged their franchises 
to be forfeited. In the following reign the Hanse 
merchants obtained a temporary renewal of their. 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 147 


privileges, but gradually declined in power, and in 
1597 were suppressed in retaliation for a decree made 
by the German Emperor, Rudolph, which closed 
the factories of the Merchant Adventurers in his 
dominions. The vigorous growth of English com- 
mercial enterprise dates from the collapse of this 
foreign guild. 

Memorials of our former dependence upon Con- 
tinental merchants are extant in the commercial 
terms which they introduced into the language; e¢¢., 
“sterling” (from Easterling), “ bank,” ‘“ bankrupt,” 
“exchange,” “‘argosy” (from Ragusa); and in the 
names of trades and commodities, such as “ milliner ” 
(from Milan), ‘‘ damask,” ‘‘ hollands,” &c. 

The thirst for geographical discovery aroused by 
the successful expeditions of Sebastian Cabot in the 
reign of Henry VIII. was revived, after a temporary 
abatement, in the following reign, when he re-visited 
England, and was warmly welcomed by the young 
King. In 1553 he assisted to form a company of 
merchants to prosecute the discovery of a northward 
passage to the East, and was chosen as their governor. 
The first expedition of three vessels was commanded 
by Sir Hugh Willoughby, who received instructions 
from Cabot, and carried letters of recommendation 
addressed by the King to all the foreign potentates 
whose dominions might be reached. Willoughby, 
with two ships, sailed as far as Russian Lapland, 
where he put into harbour for the winter, but, owing 
to the rigour of the climate, he and all his companions 
perished. The third ship, under the command of 
Richard Chancellor, reached the White Sea. Landing 

Ji 


148 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


at Archangel, he proceeded to Moscow, and had an 
interview with the Czar, who agreed to grant ex- 
clusive trading privileges to the association whom 
he represented. The English-Russian Company 
which was thus founded became a prosperous 
mercantile body. Cabot continued to direct its 
undertakings until 1557. The commercial relations 
which Chancellor had established between England 
and Russia led the way to political relations. An 
ambassador from the Czar to Philip and Mary was 
despatched in one of the Company’s vessels on its 
voyage back to England in 1556. In the following 
year he returned to Russia, accompanied by Anthony 
Jenkinson, an agent of the English-Russian merchants, 
who then proceeded down the Volga and by way of 
Astracan and the Caspian Sea to Persia, with the 
object of opening out a traffic with that country 
also. He penetrated as far as Bokhara, which was 
the great market of the Persian, Indian, and Chinese 
silk-merchants, returning to England in 1560. He 
subsequently undertook other journeys to the East, 
and in 1566 obtained trading privileges from the 
Sophi of Persia. In 1571 he was appointed by 
Elizabeth her ambassador to the Czar, uniting this 
diplomatic function with that of agent to the 
Company. 

The traffic in ivory and gold-dust with the natives of 
the western coast of Africa, commenced in the reign of 
Henry VIII., was now extremely lucrative, especially 
to the merchants of Southampton. In 1562 one of 
the west-country seamen, John Hawkins, returned 
with a cargo of negroes, and the fatal example thus 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 149 


set was too eagerly followed when the establishment 
of English colonies in the New World opened out a 
suitable field for the employment of slave-labour. 

A series of expeditions, originally prompted by 
scientific curiosity, but soon diverted to promote the 
interests of commerce, was commenced in 1576, when 
Martin Frobisher set forth with two barks of 25 tons 
each and a pinnace of Io tons to discover a north- 
west passage to “‘Cathay.” Sailing from Deptford, 
he proceeded to the Shetland Isles, whence he 
voyaged westward and sighted the coast of Greenland, 
but was unable to land. Entering the strait (to which 
his name has since been given) that leads to Hudson’s 
Bay, he effected a landing on the adjoining coast, 
and asserted possession of it in the Queen’s name, 
entitling the territory Meta Incognita. He returned 
to England in the same year, bringing with him a 
piece of stone found upon the newly-discovered 
land, which was submitted to two refiners, one of 
whom professed to find in it ‘fa grain of gold” and 
the other “‘a little silver.” Under the patronage ot 
distinguished subscribers, headed by the Queen, as 
joint “‘adventurers,” Frobisher set forth upontwo more 
expeditions, from which he returned with other large 
freights of the same kind that, when carefully assayed, 
proved to be equally worthless. 

The commercial spirit soon prevailed over the 
scientific, and in February, 1582, when Frobisher’s 
fourth expedition was on the point of starting, 
the Queen expressly instructed him that the voyage 
was to be undertaken ‘only for trade and not for 
discovery of the passage by the north-east to Catayo,”’ 


15° POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


unless tidings of such a passage could be incidentally 
obtained without hindrance to the main object in 
view. Foiled by this prohibition from gratifying 
his thirst for exploration, Frobisher resigned the 
command to Edward Fenton, who was ordered to 
proceed to the Moluccas direct. He only succeeded, 
however, in reaching St. Vincent, and was prevented 
by the Spaniards from pursuing any trading opera- 
tions there to advantage. 

An independent attempt to open commercial 
relations with Turkey and the East was made by an 
association of London merchants in 1583, one of 
whose agents travelled by way of Bagdad and the 
Persian Gulf to Goa, and returned home in 1591, 
after having visited Agra and other cities of 
India, Ceylon, and Cochin China. Another ex- 
pedition was fitted out by the Turkey company, con- 
sisting of three vessels, one of which, under the 
command of Captain Lancaster, reached India and 
Sumatra, where it shipped a cargo of spices, but was 
wrecked on the voyage home. 

A third expedition, undertaken in 1596, was not 
more successful. But in spite of these failures, the 
scarcity and high price of Eastern products, occasioned 
by the long continuance of the war with Spain and 
the monopoly which the Dutch merchants retained in 
their hands, operated as a constant stimulus to the 
renewal of fresh attempts. In 1599 several wealthy 
merchants and others subscribed a fund of £30,000 
for defraying the cost of annual expeditions to the 
East, and establishing factories at the principal com- 
mercial centres. ‘The adventurers obtained a charter 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. I51I 


of incorporation in the following year, and assumed 
the nameof the East India Company, which eventually 
became the largest and most wealthy trading corpora- 
tion in the world. Their first expedition of three or 
four vessels was sent out in 1601, under Captain 
Lancaster, who carried the Queen’s letters of recom- 
mendation to the King of Sumatra and other 
Eastern princes. At Acheen and Bantam, he was 
cordially welcomed by the native rulers, who granted 
him ample trading privileges, and sanctioned the 
establishment of factories. The development of the 
prosperous course thus inaugurated belongs to the 
history of a subsequent period. 

Other voyages undertaken by navigators animated 
by the same enthusiasm as Frobisher to discover a 
north-western or north-eastern passage to the East 
were equally unsuccessful, but indirectly led to the 
acquisition of geographical knowledge. Borough, 
Davis, and Pet are thus deservedly remembered in 
connexion with the straits on the North American 
continent which bear their names. The meed of 
honour due to English seamen for their share in the 
discovery of the New World and similar enterprises 
was worthily claimed by their chronicler, Richard 
Hakluyt, in two volumes which he published in 
1582 and 1589. His second work, ‘The Principal 
Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries made by the 
English Nation,” is one of the classics of Elizabethan 
literature. Its record was carried on in the following 
reigns by Samuel Purchas, whose ‘“ Pilyrimes ” 
eventually extended to five volumes. 

The buccaneering expedition into the Spanish 


152 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Main organised by Francis Drake in 1577 
achieved, over and above its important military and 
political results, the notable exploit of sailing round the 
globe, a feat accomplished but once before by the 
Portuguese navigator, Magelhanes, or Magellan. The 
same success attended an expedition fitted out and 
commanded by ‘Thomas Cavendish in 1586. Another 
voyage to the South Seas, undertaken by Cavendish 
and Davis in 1591, resulted in the discovery of the 
Falkland Islands. 

It was by one of the enthusiasts who dreamed of 
the discovery of a north-west passage that the 
earliest foundations of our colonial empire were laid. 
In 1578, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a half-brother of Sir 
Walter Raleigh, obtained letters patent authorising 
him to colonise any parts of North America not 
already belonging to an ally of the Queen. The 
first expedition organised by the brothers failed at the 
outset. The second, which started in 1583 with four 
vessels, reached Newfoundland, but Gilbert and his 
ship perished in a storm, and only one of the four 
returned to England. In the following year, Raleigh 
repeated the attempt with two ships, having procured 
a grant to himself of all such lands as he might 
discover, subject to the reservation of a fifth part 
of: all precious metals to the Crown. . His enterprise 
was rewarded by the discovery of the district which 
now constitutes the States of Virginia and North 
Carolina, the former title being given to it in honour 
of the virgin Queen. After obtaining an Act of 
Parliament to confirm his title, Raleigh despatched 
seven ships in 1585, under Sir Richard Grenville, 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 153 


who took possession of the territory, and left a 
colony of upwards of a hundred settlers on the 
adjoining island of Roanoke. Here they came into 
collision with the native Indians, and were thankful 
to take advantage of the opportunity to return 
home which was afforded them by Drake’s touching 
at the island in 1586. They brought back samples 
of the Indian weed, tobacco, which is now one of 
the most important exports from that country. 
Several other attempts were made by Raleigh 
during the reign of Elizabeth to colonise the 
territory which he had acquired, but the natives con- 
tinued persistently hostile and all the settlers perished. 
It was not until the following reign that our first 
colony there was permanently established. 

Tentative and even abortive as were these early 
efforts of scientific, commercial, and colonising enter- 
prise, they attested the vigorous activity of the 
Elizabethan period. The enlargement of mental 
horizon, the new ideas of distance, climate, landscape, 
natural history, and national distinctions which the 
travellers acquired, and communicated to their un- 
travelled countrymen, were incontestable gains. 
Though their tangible profits were as yet scanty, 
these expeditions afforded a rich promise of the 
future harvest. Regarded as initial steps in the 
development of our multiplex system of international 
relations and our vast colonial empire, they occupy a 
prominent place among foreign contributions to our 
growth. 


154 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


CHAPTER VII. 


Foreign influences on political history during the reign of 
James I. 


By the accession of the King of Scots to the throne 
of Elizabeth, England virtually became subject to a 
foreign prince. Half English as he was by the tie 
of blood, the mould of his mind, the colour of his 
sympathies, the training he had received, and the tradi- 
tions he had imbibed practically constituted him an 
alien. His mental ability was considerable, and he 
had cultivated it highly in more than one field of 
learning ; but his scholarship was marred by pedantry . 
and conceit, and the philosophical rules of “king- 
craft” which he prescribed for his own guidance 
needed common sense and discretion to apply them, 
which he did not possess. The sensual weakness 
and lax moral fibre which he inherited from both 
his parents rendered him prone to self-indulgence 
and prodigality, and the easy prey of designing 
favourites. In youth he had suffered much from 
the turbulence of party strife among the nobles, who 
disputed for the regency in his name, and it was 
only by slow degrees that he attained to independ- 
ence of their control. The remembrance served to 
intensify his confidence in his ability to govern alone, 
without being subjected to the checks which a 
Council of ministers and a Parliament necessarily 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. is 


impose. Though a Protestant by conviction and 
skilled in theological controversy, he had contracted 
a strong aversion to the Calvinistic system, from his 
experience of the opposition offered by its professors 
to his government of Scotland. The hierarchical 
organisation of the Church naturally commended 
itself to his theory of the divine right and absolute 
authority of kings. ‘The democratic element which 
entered into the composition of the local presby- 
teries and General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland 
inspired him with such repugnance that from the 
time he became his own master he never rested until 
he had restored episcopacy to supreme rank, and 
succeeded, after a long struggle, in reducing the 
most stubborn of Knox’s followers into silence, if 
not submission. It was fresh from the memory of 
this conflict that he came to the English throne. 
The want of sympathy between him and his subjects 
upon the questions which they had most at heart 
soon became apparent. The bulk of the nation was 
now strongly Protestant in feeling, with a decided 
bias in the direction of Puritanism. The policy 
which Elizabeth had so long pursued of maintain- 
ing the Protestant cause abroad by a close alliance 
with the French Huguenots and Dutch Calvinists, 
and an uncompromising resistance to Rome and 
Spain, and of repressing the power of Catholicism 
at home by severe penalties, was cherished by Par- 
liament and the people. Among the earliest acts of 
James which aroused their mistrust were his negotia- 
tions with the Papacy and with Spain and _ his 
relaxation of the laws against recusancy, while the 


156 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


coldness which he showed towards France and the 
harshness of his language in private concerning the 
Dutch “rebels” excited much irritation. His real 
object appears to have been to make his throne safe ; 
the negotiations with Rome being designed to secure 
the Catholics from plotting by the promise of a 
milder végzme, and overtures of peace being addressed 
to Spain to prevent their looking to its power for aid. 
But his aim was either not perceived or not appre- 
ciated, and the course of events forced him to adopt 
a different policy. 

Our attention being restricted to the operation of 
foreign influences upon the national progress, a 
cursory notice is all that can be given to the merely 
domestic history of this reign. 

After successfully coping with two plots, indicating 
the existence of discontent in various quarters, which 
broke out soon after his accession, James came into 
collision with the Puritan party in the Church upon 
the questions of eliminating from its ritual the forms 
which they associated with Romish superstition, such 
as the cross in baptism, the surplice, and bowing at 
the name of Jesus; of enforcing a stricter observance 
of the Sabbath ; issuing a new translation of the Bible, 
and similar reforms. Though presiding at the con- 
ference of divines summoned for the discussion of 
these questions at Hampton Court, he showed no 
intention of impartially considering them, rating 
the Puritan delegates in the tone he had adopted 
towards the presbyteries of Scotland, and closing the 
discussion by a threat that he would enforce his own 
system of Church-government against all opposition. 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 157 


The only points upon which he and the Bishops (who 
as a body sided with him) consented to gratify the 
petitioners were the removal of two or three objec- 
tionable phrases in the Prayer-book and the issue of 
a new translation of the Bible, the existing Authorised 
Version, which was completed in 1611. 

In the same temper James met his first Parliament 
in 1604. His proposals for concluding peace with 
Spain and for uniting England and Scotland in one 
realm of Great Britain were coldly received by the 
Commons, who were primarily bent upon obtaining 
religious reform and a mitigation of the severe 
feudal exactions which the Crown retained. The 
Bills which they framed with this end having been 
thrown out by the Lords, at the King’s instance, the 
Commons addressed him in bold language, which 
repudiated any “absolute power” residing in the 
kings of England ‘to alter religion,” or to make any 
laws concerning it, ‘‘ except by consent of Parlia- 
ment.” His answer was an angry rebuke, and as the 
House did not proceed to vote the subsidy he 
demanded, he adjourned Parliament. His contempt 
of their resolution that the question of union 
between England and Scotland should be referred to 
a commission for inquiry was shown by his imme- 
diate assumption of the title of King of Great 
Britain. The Bishops, fortified by his support, took 
the opportunity of violating the compromise which 
enabled the Puritan clergy who subscribed such of 
the Thirty-nine Articles as related to the doctrines 
and sacraments of the Church to evade subscription 
to those which concerned questions of discipline. 


158 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Pursuant to a_ resolution of Convocation, the 
Primate Bancroft, who led the anti-Puritan party, 
required all beneficed clergymen to conform to the 
prescribed rubrics. The refusal of three hundred 
Puritan incumbents to comply with this stipulation 
was punished by their ejection in 1605. 

The remission of the penalties against recusants 
haying raised the hopes of the Catholics, the number 
of those who avowed their faith was much increased, 
and several conversions were reported. Parliament, 
in alarm, re-enacted the coercive statutes of the last 
reign, and arumour that the King had himself become 
a convert irritated him into putting them in force 
and reviving the fines on recusancy. ‘The frustration 
of their expectations excited the fanaticism of a few 
Catholics to strike terror into their enemies by 
destroying the King and the members of both Houses 
ata blow. The “Gunpowder Plot” was communi- 
cated by its authors to several Catholic gentlemen of 
distinction, and eventually to Father Garnet, the 
provincial of the English Jesuits. It was discovered 
by the Government shortly before the day fixed for 
its execution, by means of a letter written by one of 
the band to warn a Catholic peer not to be present 
at the opening of Parliament. The chief conspirators 
were captured, and after a long examination and 
trial were sent with their accomplices to the block. 
Several Catholic peers were arrested on suspicion, 
fined, and imprisoned. 

The sense of their common danger drew the King 
and the Parliament into accord, and after a series 
of penal statutes against the Catholics had been 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 159 


unanimously passed, a subsidy was voted in 1606 for 
the payment of the heavy charges incurred by his 
profuse expenditure. ‘This proving insufficient, he 
resorted to the arbitrary levy of imposts upon exports 
and imports,—a practice which the Plantagenets had 
been forced to abandon, and which the Tudors had but 
rarely revived. As the foreign commerce of Engiand 
had by this time vastly increased, the revenue thus 
derived rendered him almost independent of subsidies. 
Parliament vainly protested against the innovation, 
and an attempt by a London merchant to dispute the 
legality of the imposts was defeated by a judgment 
of the Court of Exchequer. The Commons again 
came into collision with the King in 1607, upon the 
subject of the naturalisation of Scotchmen born after 
his accession. ‘The contention of James, in which he 
was supported by the opinion of the judges, was, that 
all such persons had become naturalised Englishmen ; 
whereas the House, repudiating a conclusion which 
implied the dependence of the nation on the King, 
proposed to naturalise all Scotchmen by statute. The 
King refusing this compromise, the measures which 
had been under consideration by the Commons for 
abolishing hostile laws and establishing free trade 
between England and Scotland were abandoned, and 
the union of the two countries was postponed for 
another century. 

In Scotland, James pursued a similar policy of 
ignoring or over-riding the popular will; silencing the 
General Assembly by proroguing its meetings year 
after year; punishing by imprisonment and exile a 
few daring members who resisted his mandates, and 


160 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


enforcing episcopal control over the provincial synods 
and presbyteries. His theory of “divine right” was 
now recognised by the hierarchy as a fundamental 
principle, and the doctrine of ‘‘ passive obedience ” 
preached from the pulpit and taught in the university. 
The distrust created by this coalition against public 
liberty occasioned more than one outburst of Parlia- 
mentary irritation, and culminated in a definite breach 
between the King and the Commons in 1610. 

Large as was the revenue which James derived 
from the imposition of custom-duties, his expenditure 
so greatly exceeded it that his minister, Robert Cecil, 
Lord Salisbury, after vainly trying to induce economy, 
tendered the advice that a subsidy should be de- 
manded from Parliament. As the son of Burghley 
and trained in the traditions of Elizabethan states- 
manship, Cecil viewed with alarm the subversion of 
that good understanding between the sovereign and 
the nation upon which the stability of the throne had 
been based, and directed his efforts to bring about a 
reconciliation. The condition of affairs abroad added 
to his uneasiness. He had laboured to maintain the 
relations with foreign States which Elizabeth’s policy 
established. With Spain, which, though still strong, 
was no longer formidable, peace was prudently made; 
but the Dutch alliance was adhered to, and a friendly 
though less intimate understanding preserved with 
France. The war between Spain and the Provinces 
had been determined by a truce for twelve years, 
which was concluded in 1609 by the mediation of 
England and France. ‘The greatest danger that now 
threatened the Protestant cause in Europe was 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 161 


arising in Germany. The German possessions of 
Charles V., which had passed with the Imperial crown 
to his brother Ferdinand, now comprehended the 
Austrian Duchy, the Tyrol, Hungary, Bohemia, Mo- 
ravia, and other provinces. The tolerant policy of 
Ferdinand and his successors had hitherto secured 
peace between Catholics and Protestants upon the 
basis of the treaty of Passau made between Maurice, 
Duke of Saxony, and Charles V. That treaty, while 
recognising the permanent secularisation of lands 
formerly belonging to the Church, did not provide for 
future contingencies. Lutheranism, however, spread 
rapidly over the Austrian dominions, and in Northern 
Germany much additional Church-land became secu- 
larised. The counter-reformation, organised by the 
zeal of the Jesuits, offered a powerful check to this 
movement, and the strife between Lutherans and 
Calvinists strengthened the hands of the Catholic 
reactionaries. ‘They agitated for the restoration of 
the Church-lands, and the Emperor Rudolph, at their 
instigation, attempted in 1606 to enforce Catholic 
conformity throughout Austria. This policy being 
maintained by his successor, Matthias, the Calvinistic 
States of the Palatinate, Hesse and Baden, whose- 
safety was especially endangered, entered into a Pro- 
testant Union in 1608,—a step which was immediately 
checked by the formation of a Catholic League. 
Spain and France showed intentions of taking part in 
the dispute, and a European war was imminent, which 
Cecil held could only be averted by England’s media- 
tion. ‘This could only be effective if supported by a 
show of force, for which the means were wanting 
M 


162 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


unless supplied by Parliament. His scheme for 
bringing about an accord between it and the Crown 
resolved itself into a bargain or ‘‘contract,” whereby 
the King was to surrender his feudal rights and his 
title to levy imposts at will, in consideration of Par- 
liamentary sanction being given to those already 
levied, the grant of a subsidy to discharge his debts, 
and the increase of his revenue by £200,000 a 
year. 

When the Houses assembled in 1610, the Commons 
showed themselves in no mood to accept these offers, 
unless coupled with further concessions. Their 
complaints against .the Crown embraced temporal 
and spiritual grievances; not only the levying of 
imposts, but the attempt to give royal proclamations 
the force of laws, the establishment of new courts, 
the deposition of godly ministers on account of 
scruples to accept the rubrics, the continuance of 
pluralities, and the inadequate training of the clergy. 
The King refusing to limit his prerogative in ecclesi- 
astical matters, and the Commons tenaciously adhering 
to their resolution, the ‘‘ contract” was abandoned, | 
and in February, 1611, James dissolved Parliament. 
The failure of his scheme of reconciliation so dis- 
appointed Cecil that it is believed to have hastened 
his death in the following year. He succeeded, 
however, in an effort to strengthen the accord between 
English and Continental Protestants by bringing about - 
a marriage between the King’s eldest daughter, Eliza- 
beth, and the heir of the Elector Palatine, who 
headed the Protestant Union. 

The King, now unrestrained by any relic of Eliza- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 163 


bethan traditions, indulged his ambition to be his 
own minister. Even the Council, which the Tudors 
had never failed to consult and whose support had 
given weight to their mandates, was slighted by 
neglect, and its influence subordinated to that of 
successive favourites, whose title to the royal regard 
rested upon their possession of merely personal 
attractions. The most influential of them was a 
Scotch youth named Carr, who was raised to the 
rank of Viscount Rochester and Earl of Somerset. 
Under his végzme the extravagance of the Court was 
recklessly increased, and the King’s proclivity to 
sensual indulgence displayed itself in gross excesses 
which excited public contempt. The necessity of 
obtaining a subsidy to supply the deficit occasioned 
by this waste forced James to summon Parliament in 
1614, but the new House refused, like the last, to 
grant supplies until its grievances had been con- 
sidered. The King rejecting this demand, a deadlock 
ensued, and, after a fruitless session of two months, 
resulted in a dissolution. 

In defiance of the protest of the Commons, James 
continued to levy imposts, issue proclamations, and 
maintain ecclesiastical abuses. Fora time he obtained 
some relief from his load of debt by selling to the 
United Provinces the towns which they had left in 
the hands of Elizabeth as pledges for the repayment 
of her loan to them, but this fund proving inadequate, 
he resorted to the expedient of raising money by 
“benevolences.” ‘Their exaction being forbidden by 
a statute of Richard III., letters of request were 
despatched to the landowners of each county, on the — 

M 2 


164 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


pretext that assistance was needed to defend the 
Protestant cause in Germany. Notwithstanding these 
efforts, the sum of £60,000 was all that could be 
obtained from this source during three years. Other 
expedients were then tried—feudal exactions were 
rigorously pressed, fines extorted for the breach of 
royal proclamations, peerages sold to. wealthy bid- 
ders or forced upon prosperous commoners against 
their will. These despotic courses alienated the 
sympathies of almost every classin turn. The climax 
was reached when the Judges, who had shown the 
utmost obsequiousness to the King’s will, were driven 
to protest against his attempt to extend, by an 
assertion of prerogative, the jurisdiction of the 
ecclesiastical courts. James met their protest by an 
angry scolding, which reduced all to submission 
except the Chief Justice, Sir Edward Coke, who, 
standing upon the dignity of his office, was deprived 
of it in 1616, 

The same year witnessed the fall from power of 
the worthless Somerset, on account of his complicity 
in a murder committed by his wife, the sequel of an 
adulterous intrigue at which the King himself had 
connived. Before his fall Somerset had been sup- 
planted in the royal favour by a minion equally 
worthless and even more mischievous, George 
Villiers, who quickly rose to the rank of Duke of 
Buckingham and the office of Lord High Admiral. 
By his brilliant audacity, strong will, and devotion to 
the service of the Crown, he established a hold over 
the King’s mind, which was riveted by the affection 
entertained for him by Prince Charles, now heir to 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 165 


the throne.! During the remainder of the reign the 
favourite exercised a virtual tyranny in the. King’s 
name, which he shamelessly abused to the aggrandise- 
ment of himself and his family, and the sacrifice of 
the most cherished interests of the nation. 

The European complications which had awakened 
Cecil’s anxiety were rapidly increasing, and the 
marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the heir of 
the Elector Palatine had produced the effect which he 
intended of stimulating the sympathy of England 
with the Protestant cause. The King, though a 
lukewarm partisan, desired on his daughter’s account 
to avert the war which threatened the safety of the 
Union, but his device for securing peace was to ally 
himself with Spain, whose policy was supposed to be 
pacific, and the weight of whose influence was strong 
enough to sway the Catholic States. It had already 
thrown out suggestions of a possible marriage between 
Prince Charles and a Spanish Infanta, the idea of 
which not only gratified the vanity of James, but 
held out the promise of a rich dowry, which would 
render him independent of Parliament. ‘That Spain 
would demand a guid pro quo, by stipulating that 
English Catholics should be relieved from their restric- 
tions and that the offspring of the marriage should be 
trained in the mother’s faith, did not enter into the 
King’s calculation. In 1614 he made a definite 
matrimonial proposition to the Court of Spain, which 
received an indefinite but encouraging reply. The 
motives that seem to have actuated the Spanish Court 


' His elder brother, Henry, a youth of great promise, had 
died in 1612. 


166 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


throughout the ensuing negotiations were, by flattering 
the hopes of James, to secure his inactivity in the 
impending war, and to obtain some relaxation of the 
severity which pressed upon his Catholic subjects. 
Once kindled in South Germany, the flame of war 
would undoubtedly spread northward to the Rhenish 
Palatinate, which Spain regarded as the highway from 
her Italian possessions to the Netherlands, and 
anxiously desired to keep in friendly hands. Upon 
all these grounds the Spanish Court was disposed to 
entertain the overtures of James favourably, without 
committing itself to their acceptance. 

The negotiations with Spain for the purpose of 
providing the Prince with a Catholic wife excited 
deep indignation in England. An ingenious design 
of luring James by his appetite for gain and em- 
broiling the two countries in hostility, suggested 
itself to the mind of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had 
remained a State prisoner in the Tower since 1603, 
under a sentence of death recorded against him for 
alleged complicity ina plot. In one of his voyages 
he had discovered the existence of a gold-mine on 
the River Orinoco, which he had never explored, 
and now solicited the King’s sanction to revisit, and 
work for the profit of the Crown. James assented to 
set him at liberty for this purpose, upon condition 
that no attack should be made upon the territory or 
subjects of Spain. Having by dint of great pecuniary 
sacrifices collected a fleet of fourteen vessels, Raleigh 
sailed in March, 1617, for the coast of Guiana, 
where one of his officers came into collision with 
the Spaniards, who were in force at the town of 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 167 


St. Thomas. The governor, a relative of Gondomar, 
the Spanish envoy in London, was killed on the one 
side, and Sir Walter Raleigh’s eldest son on the 
other, and the town was set on fire. After failing 
to discover the mine and suffering further losses, 
Raleigh returned to England, where he was _ pro- 
claimed and arrested. Gondomar clamoured for his 
death, and was assured by Buckingham, in the King’s 
name, that the deferred sentence should be executed. 
Raleigh’s gallant defence and appeal to the royal 
clemency were unavailing, and in October, 1618, he 
was beheaded. 

The religious conflict in Germany had already 
broken out. In 1617 the Bohemian Diet accepted 
Ferdinand as the successor of their. King, the 
Emperor Matthias; but his intolerance drove the 
nobles to a violent demonstration in May, 1618, 
which was followed by a call to arms. For awhile 
the war was limited to his dominions; but by the 
death of Matthias, in 1619, Ferdinand succeeded to 
the Austrian Duchy, and became a candidate for the 
Imperial throne. Dissensions between the Lutheran 
and Calvinistic princes, who, if united, might have 
defeated him, brought about his election. The 
Bohemians, renouncing their allegiance to him, 
offered the throne to Frederick, the son-in-law of 
James, now Elector-Palatine and a leader of the 
Calvinistic Union. He accepted the offer, and was 
crowned at Prague, but met with less support than 
he expected. His colleagues in the Union were 
restrained from helping him by the threats of France, 
which dreaded the neighbourhood of a State whose 


168 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


sympathy with the Huguenot party might reopen 
strife in her midst. James was indignant that his son- 
in-law should sanction the revolt of the Bohemians, 
and usurp the throne of their lawful ruler. All his 
influence was exerted to induce Frederick to retract 
the step he had taken, and to hinder the Dutch, who 
heartily approved it, from lending him assistance. 
The bulk of the English nation warmly advocated 
Frederick’s cause; and Abbot, who had succeeded 
Bancroft as Primate, and sympathised with the 
Puritans, urged the King to come forward as the 
Protestant champion. James, however, persistently 
disregarded these counsels, and blindly trusted that 
by an alliance with Spain he could bring about peace. 
In 1620 his confidence was rudely shaken by her 
overt interposition on the side of the Emperor. 
Spinola, her general in the Netherlands, was ordered 
to march up the Rhine to assist him with a large 
force. James, in alarm, allowed a band of 4,000 
English volunteers, under Sir Horace Vere, to enter 
the Palatinate ; but their aid did not arrive in time to 
strengthen the resistance of the Protestant Union. 
The army-of the Catholic League, under Maximilian, 
Duke of Bavaria, reinforced that of Ferdinand, and, 
after reducing Austria to submission, their united 
forces invaded Bohemia. 

When too late to render the Protestant cause any 
service, James assented to the popular demand by 
resummoning Parliament in January, 1621. In the 
previous November the army of the League had 
inflicted a crushing defeat upon Frederick before 
Prague, and drove him, with his wife and children, 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 169 


to take refuge in Holland. The Protestant Union 
had also been defeated by Spinola, whose troops 
over-ran the Palatinate. James was strongly urged 
by the German princes and the King of Denmark 
to despatch a force to their aid, and supplies for this 
purpose would willingly have been voted by the 
Commons. But, from fear of a rupture with Spain, 
which might frustrate his matrimonial project, he 
clung to diplomatic action in preference to war. 
Disappointed of its hope, the House turned for a while 
to the reform of domestic abuses, the suppression of 
monopolies, and the punishment of official corruption ; 
but in the course of the session of 1621, it made a 
fresh attempt to induce James to intervene on behalf 
of the Protestant cause. A unanimous resolution 
was passed, that, “‘ for the recovery of the Palatinate, 
they would adventure their fortunes, their estates, and 
their lives.” But beyond negotiations and threats 
James could not be persuaded to advance; and when 
both proved fruitless, he fell back upon his old 
policy of waiting upon the pleasure of Spain. His 
suit for the Infanta’s hand was eagerly renewed. A 
petition which the Commons presented to him on 
their reassembling in the autumn, that he would 
declare war with Spain and wed the Prince to a 
Protestant, he regarded as a presumptuous attempt 
to meddle in the affairs of state with which he 
was alone concerned ; treating their delegates with 
mockery, and threatening them with imprisonment. 
When the House, preserving its dignity under this 
provocation, passed a resolution: affirming that the 
liberties of Parliament are the birthright of English- 


V7o POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


men, and claiming for its members freedom of speech 
to debate such affairs as were urgent concerning the 
Crown, the State, and the Church, the King met its 
protest by sending for the journal of the House, and 
erasing the record with his own hand. He shortly 
afterwards dissolved Parliament. 

While thus disdainful of the Protestant sympathies 
of the nation, James pursued his own course of 
endeavouring to effect the restoration of the Pala- 
tinate by means of a Spanish alliance. To win the 
hand of the Infanta for the Prince, he was willing to 
submit to any indignity. A dispensation from the 
Holy See being necessary to sanction the match, he 
sent two agents to Rome, and personally corresponded 
with the Pope on the subject, at the same time 
making a show of tolerance by liberating hundreds 
of Catholic recusants. The policy to which he thus 
clung was not only distasteful to his subjects and 
opposed to the advice of all his ministers except 
Buckingham, but had no chance of attaining the end 
sought. Spain, having already achieved the object 
for which she consented to negotiate with him, saw 
no advantage to be gained by carrying the project 
into effect. Her real designs contemplated the re- 
establishment of Catholicism in the Palatinate by 
restoring it to the son of Frederick, and bringing 
him up as a Catholic at the Emperor’s court. She 
accordingly instructed her ministers to retreat from 
the negotiations. The eagerness of James, however, 
was only increased by the reluctance of Spain. 
Buckingham, who shared his impatience, suggested 
to the young Prince that the settlement of the matter 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 171 


would be expedited if he repaired to Madrid, and 
wooed the Infanta in person. The King opposed this 
step as imprudent, but unwillingly consented ; and in 
February, 1623, Charles and Buckingham left England 
in disguise, under assumed names, and reached 
Madrid in March. The Spanish Court showed their 
visitors the utmost courtesy; but when the terms of 
contract were discussed, the bargaining was all on 
one side. Charles,-fortified by his father’s pledge in 
writing to perform every promise that he made, dis- 
played his readiness to yield all the demands urged 
upon him. A Catholic chapel was to be erected for 
the Princess, which all persons were to be at liberty 
to attend. Her household was to be composed of 
Catholics, and the children of the marriage educated 
in her faith. Lastly, the laws which made it penal 
for Catholics to worship in their own houses were to 
be repealed. To the arguments addressed to him, 
with the view of effecting his own conversion, Charles 
listened in silence. He and Buckingham endeavoured, 
on the other hand, to obtain some concession in 
relation to the Palatinate which might compensate 
England for what had been thus surrendered. Upon 
this point, however, the Spanish ministers would not 
yield; and, when pressed, admitted that it was with 
Spain a maxim of state never to employ force against 
the Emperor. As, owing to the inaction of James, 
the Palatinate was now at the mercy of the League, 
and Frederick’s Electoral title had been declared 
forfeited and bestowed upon.the Duke of Bavaria, no 
hope was left of regaining either without recourse to 
arms. Charles, therefore, regarded Spain’s positive 


172 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


refusal upon this point, coupled with her evasive 
answers upon others, as virtually closing the negotia- 
tion; but, concealing his mortification at defeat, and 
affecting to consider his betrothal settled, he and 
Buckingham returned home. 

The manifestation of delight which greeted’ the 
return of Charles after his unsuccessful enterprise 
attested the nation’s hatred of Catholic alliances, and 
his popularity was only due to its ignorance of how 
much he had been ready to concede. The anger 
which he and Buckingham (by whose advice he acted) 
felt at having failed was soon vented in the shape of 
a peremptory demand to the Spanish Court, delivered 
by the English ambassador, that before the marriage 
contract could be ratified, satisfaction must be given 
for the surrender of the Palatinate to Frederick, or 
_ war declared upon the Emperor to enforce it. This 
being a distinct breach of the understanding to which 
Spain had agreed, she broke off the negotiations, the 
English ambassador was recalled, and preparations 
were made for war. James, though chagrined at 
losing the rich dowry which he expected with the 
Infanta, was too much in the power of Buckingham 
and the Prince to withstand the pressure they put 
upon him to break with Spain. Parliament was 
reluctantly resummoned in February, 1624, and a 
garbled version of the transactions with the Spanish 
Court laid before the Commons. ‘This answered the 
purpose of extracting a large subsidy, which the King 
pledged himself to devote to the expenses of the war. 
A royal proclamation was then issued, declaring all 
treaties with Spain at an end. Besides assenting to 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 173 


a petition of both Houses that the statutes against 
Catholics might be enforced, James announced that 
he would suffer no indulgence of the prohibited 
rites. ‘The Prince on his own account added a pledge 
that, should he wed a Catholic princess, her liberty 
of worship should be restricted to her own family, 
and not extended to the recusants. 

The warlike policy upon which the country was 
now bent, and which Buckingham undertook to con- 
duct, involved the formation of a treaty with the 
United Provinces, whose territory the Spaniards had 
recently invaded with a large force. The Dutch 
were just then deservedly unpopular in England, on 
account of the barbarous tortures and judicial murder 
recently perpetrated, under colour of a charge of 
conspiracy, by some of their officers, upon several 
English merchants, whose settlement at Amboyna, one 
of the Spice Islands, had excited their commercial 
jealousy. To the demand for inquiry and redress 
made by the English ambassador at the Hague, a 
formally-apologetic reply was at last returned. With 
this, under the political circumstances, England was 
forced to be content, and four regiments of foot were 
raised and transported into Holland. An alliance 
against Spain and Austria was then contracted with 
the Protestant powers of Denmark and Sweden, and 
some of the Lutheran princes of North Germany ; 
eventually being enlarged to include France, Savoy, 
and Venice. The twofold object of the campaign 
thus pompously inaugurated was to expel the Spaniards 
from the Netherlands and to recéver the Palatinate, 
but the result of all Buckingham’s preparations was 


174 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


but disaster and disgrace. The Dutch troops and 
their English auxiliaries, commanded by Prince 
Maurice of Orange, were worsted by Spinola in every 
important engagement, and on the retirement of the 
Prince into winter quarters many English officers 
returned home. Another force of pressed recruits 
was despatched to the Palatinate, under the command 
of Count Mansfeldt, a partisan of the Elector, but, 
owing to the inadequate provision made for, their 
transport, sickness and famine so thinned their 
numbers that by the time they reached the Rhine 
they were unavailing for offensive warfare. 

Before the actual rupture of the marriage-treaty 
with Spain, James set on foot a negotiation with 
Louis XIII., who (on the murder of his father, 
Henry IV., in 1610) had succeeded to the throne of 
France, for the hand of his sister, Henrietta Maria. 
Under his weak rule the kingdom was virtually 
governed by his astute minister, Cardinal Richelieu, 
who was no more disposed than the advisers of Spain 
had been to assent to a dynastic alliance with a 
Protestant State without ample guarantees of Catholic 
toleration. In spite of the solemn pledges to the 
contrary which James and the Prince had so recently 
taken to Parliament, they consented, after some hesi- 
tation, to sign a secret undertaking that, in contem- 
plation of the intended marriage, all English Catholics 
should be permitted to enjoy full liberty of worship 
without molestation. On being further pressed, they 
agreed to set free all Catholics imprisoned on account 
of their faith sincethe rising of Parliament, and that 
the recent fines for recusancy should be repaid. 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 175 


Finally, James was induced by the Prince and Buck- 
ingham to promise that English ships should assist 
Louis in blockading the town of Rochelle, which had 
been seized by the Huguenot leader, Soubise, who 
declared his intention of holding it until security 
was given for toleration. It is needless to say that 
the exaction of these conditions was strictly con- 
cealed from the public ear in England. The pre- 
liminaries having been thus settled, the Princess 
prepared for her departure, but the nuptials were 
delayed by the death of James, which occurred after 
a short illness, March 27, 1625. 


176 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


CHAPTER, Ndit 


Foreigh influences on political history from the accession of 
Charles I. to the outbreak of the Civil War. 


CHARLES, although born in Scotland three years before 
his father’s succession to the throne of Elizabeth, spent 
his youth and early manhood upon English soil, but 
this training failed to imbue him with English sym- 
pathies. His congenital bias, the traditions he 
adopted from his father, and the influence exerted by 
his confidential advisers, so tinged his character and 
dictated his policy that he can only be regarded as a 
foreign ruler. It would be impossible, within the 
limits of this sketch, to trace in detail the disastrous 
course of his attempt to impose the yoke of autocracy 
upon the neck of a free people. It must suffice to 
dwell upon those incidents of his reign in which the 
operation of foreign influences is most marked, and 
to indicate the rest in outline. 

An abiding source of foreign influence was present 
with Charles from the date of his accession in the 
person of the French Catholic princess whom he 
made his Queen. ‘Though while Buckingham lived 
she had far less power over her husband than she 
afterwards obtained, she was early recognised by the 
nation as a visible danger. Besides the Catholic 
household which the bride brought with her on her 
arrival in June, 1625, she was attended by twenty- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. wy 
(INSTI 


nine priests, both regular and secular, together with a, 
bishop. Mass was celebrated in her apartments,*but 
no English man or woman was allowed to be present. 
The priests soon chafed at this restraint, and urged 
the King to fit up a chapel for their use at St. James’s 
Palace; but, as he resented their intrusion on his 
domestic privacy and the injudicious influence which 
they exercised upon the Queen, whose capricious 
temper needed control, he paid no heed to the 
request. The limits of indulgence with which they 
were discontented were too wide for the satisfaction 
of the people’s representatives in Parliament. While 
granting two subsidies for the war to recover the 
Palatinate, they petitioned the King to put the penal 
statutes against Catholics into immediate force. ‘To 
this appeal Charles, with the pledge he had given to 
Richelieu fresh in his recollection, returned a gracious 
answer. Upon a cognate question which strongly 
moved the religious feeling of the Commons he 
was less conciliating. One of the royal chaplains, 
Dr. Montague, who had laid stress in his sermons 
upon the points in which the Anglican Church 
differed from that of Geneva and those in which it 
agreed with the Church of Rome, was summoned to 
answer at the bar of the House the charge of impugn- 
ing the Articles agreed to in 1562. The King took 
umbrage at this arraignment, as a violation of his 
prerogative, and when Montague was committed to 
prison soon released him, and afterwards promoted 
him to a bishopric. 

After another disagreement with the Commons re- 
specting a grant of the duties of tonnage and poundage, 

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+ PW 
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178 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


which, mindful of the arbitrary procedure of James, 
they limited to a year instead of for life, Charles 
justified their mistrust by proceeding to exact, on his 
own authority, an impost of ‘“‘coat and conduct 
money” for the troops levied for the Palatinate. 
Public indignation was at the same time aroused by 
the discovery of the pledge given to France by James 
that English ships should be employed to reduce the 
Huguenot stronghold of Rochelle. Richelieu having 
applied to Charles for the fulfilment of this pledge, 
he reluctantly complied; but, ashamed to let the 
destination of the force be known, gave out that it 
was intended to join the French in attacking Genoa, 
then an ally of the Empire. The fleet had been 
grossly neglected under Buckingham’s rule, but one 
man-of-war and seven large merchant-vessels were 
fitted out and despatched under Vice-Admiral 
Pennington. On arriving off Dieppe, the secret of 
their real destination was learned by the crew, who at 
once drew up a strong protest, and Pennington was 
forced to return to the Downs. By dint of a fresh 
deception, the fleet was once more mustered at 
Dieppe, where Pennington had received orders to 
deliver up his own vessel to the French commander, 
and to enforce obedience, if necessary, from the 
merchant-captains by firing upon them. He suc- 
ceeded in intimidating all but one officer to permit 
the French troops destined for Rochelle to embark, 
but, having arrived there, the English crews refused 
to fight, and either deserted to the Huguenots or 
made their way home. 

The mood in which the House met on reassembling 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 179 


in August was calmly resolute. In reply to the 
King’s demand for a further subsidy to carry on the 
war, the Commons claimed their right to discuss 
grievances before supplies. ‘The continued neglect 
of the statutes against the Catholics, the maladminis- 
tration of the navy, the concentration of many high 
offices of state in Buckingham’s person, and the sale 
of others to his satellites were gravely denounced 
by such weighty speakers as Coke and Sir Robert 
Cotton. But the King’s impatience would not allow 
time for the presentation of an address embodying 
these complaints. After a session of twelve days, he 
abruptly dissolved Parliament. 

To appease the public discontent, Buckingham, by 
means of forced loans and the suspension of official 
salaries; contrived to fit out a naval armament, to 
which the United Provinces contributed a squadron, 
for a descent upon the coast of Spain, but, with his 
usual incapacity, he entrusted the expedition to an 
incompetent general, Lord Wimbledon, who, after 
losing many men by shipwreck and disease, returned 
home without having achieved the smallest success. 
To meet the debt incurred by this enterprise, 
Buckingham advised the King to summon a new 
Parliament, but, to guard against the opposition he ex- 
pected, debarred several leading members of the House 
from obtaining seats by nominating them as Sheriffs 
of their counties. He further attempted to conciliate 
the Puritan party by levying fines upon recusants, 
and issuing a proclamation against Catholic mission- 
aries. ‘These tactics proved unavailing to deprecate 
the hostility of the Parliament which met in February, 

N 2 


180 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


1626. The post of patriotic leader was filled by Sir 
John Eliot, a Cornish country gentleman of high 
character and culture, fired by an ardent love of 
liberty. He at once stepped forth as the accuser of 
Buckingham, to whose evil counsels and maladminis- 
tration he attributed the disasters which had befallen 
the nation. ‘The minister’s impeachment was voted 
by the Commons, and he was summoned to the bar 
of the Lords. While the proceedings were pending, 
Charles tried to quash them by arresting Eliot and 
another member who had drawn up the impeach- 
ment, but, the Commons refusing to attend to any 
business in their absence, he was forced to release 
them. After a month’s delay, Buckingham prepared 
his defence, but the King would not suffer the trial to 
proceed, and, rejecting a petition for the favourite’s 
dismissal, again dissolved Parliament. 

After ordering all copies of the petition recently 
ypresented by the Commons to be burned, the King 
“proceeded to levy, by forced benevolences and loans, 
‘the subsidies which they had constitutionally with- 
held. Every device of intimidation was resorted to 
in order to extort money from the nation. William 
Laud, Bishop of Bath and Wells, who rose into 
favour as chief ecclesiastical champion of the royal 
doctrine of “divine right,” formulated instructions 
that the clergy should inculcate the duty of lending 
or giving money to the King, without Parliamentary 
sanction, as a merit essential to salvation. One of 
his partisans carried this doctrine to the length of 
insisting upon the subject’s duty of “passive obe- 
dience” to commands of the ‘‘Lord’s anointed,” 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 181 


even if contrary to the laws of God or Nature. For 
refusing to license a sermon of this tenor, the Primate, 
Abbot, was suspended from his functions. <A similar 
disgrace was inflicted upon Williams, Bishop of 
Lincoln, for his opposition, and the Chief Justice, 
Crewe, who submitted that the levy of forced loans was 
illegal, was dismissed from his post. Yet, in spite of 
all the pressure put upon the country, scarcely any 
funds were forthcoming. Many counties boldly 
declined to contribute. Several peers protested 
against the illegality of the levy, and two hundred 
gentlemen, including John Hampden, a leading land- 
owner of Buckinghamshire, were brought before the 
Council and imprisoned for their refusal to lend. 

At this crisis, a rupture which occurred in the 
relations between England and France led to a 
change of policy. The King’s sudden dismissal of 
the Queen’s French attendants, whose insolent be- 
haviour and intrigues kept the royal household in 
continual discord, was one cause of offence to the 
French Court; another was the breach of faith 
which he committed in persecuting the English 
Catholics; a third was the evasion of his pledge 
to assist in reducing Rochelle. The quarrel was 
aggravated by the influence of Buckingham, whose 
relations with Henrietta Maria were far from cordial, 
and who was piqued by an intimation that his 
presence would be unwelcome in Paris, which he 
had proposed to visit. Actuated as well by these 
motives as by the hope of gaining popularity, he 
collected in July, 1627, a fleet of a hundred vessels, 
and, assuming the command, sailed to the relief of 


182 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Rochelle. Again his incapacity proved fatal to the 
expedition. After landing his troops on the Isle of 
Rhé, and fruitlessly besieging the castle of St. Martin, 
he tried to retreat to his ships over a narrow cause- 
way under a cross-fire which swept off 2,000 of his 
men. On his return to England in November with 
the remnant of his fleet, Charles welcomed him with 
tokens of unabated regard, which only deepened the 
national aversion. 

The necessity of obtaining fresh supplies obliged 
the King to summon a Parliament early in 1628. 
The elections were generally unfavourable to the 
Court candidates, and the prominent patriots were 
again returned ; Eliot’s leadership being ably seconded 
by John Pym, a Somersetshire gentleman of states- 
manlike genius and determination. At their instance 
the House drew up and presented a Petition of Right 
to the King, setting forth the statutes which forbade 
taxation without the authority of Parliament, the levy 
of forced loans, the infliction of arbitrary punish- 
ments, and praying that the violation of these statutes 
committed during the past and present reigns might 
no longer be permitted. When Charles returned an 
evasive answer to the Petition, Eliot proceeded to 
move a Remonstrance upon the state of the realm, 
denouncing Buckingham by name as the cause of its 
disorders. Though here interrupted by the Speaker, 
Finch, who was charged by the King to prevent any 
aspersion upon the minister, the Commons resolved, in 
defiance of this injunction, that the Duke should be 
named. Buckingham, who had already despatched 
another expedition to Rochelle, which proved as fruit- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 183 


less as the last, was hopeful of redeeming his failures 
by a third attempt, for which he required supplies, and 
advised Charles to assent to the Petition. The King, 
having obtained an opinion from the Judges that his 
prerogative right to levy dues not granted by Parlia- 
ment would remain intact, assented to the Petition, 
with this mental reservation. The event was celebrated 
by a burst of popular rejoicing, and the Commons 
voted the subsidies demanded. But their Remon- 
strance, when presented to Charles, was ungraciously 
received, and the question of voting him the duties 
of tonnage and poundage for a year had no sooner 
been mooted than the King, who had reserved these 
among the taxes he intended to levy at pleasure, 
hastily prorogued Parliament. Amid ominous signs 
of his unpopularity, Buckingham, having mustered 
a large force of men and ships at Portsmouth, was 
on the eve of starting for a last expedition to Rochelle 
when a fanatic, named Felton, inflamed by hatred of 
a public enemy, stabbed him to the heart. 

No change for the better resulted in the ad- 
ministration of affairs, the place of Buckingham being 
filled by Weston, one of his creatures. The expedition 
to Rochelle failed in accomplishing the relief of the 
Huguenot stronghold, whose defenders were forced 
to surrender it. In Germany, also, the Protestant 
cause lay crushed, without the tender of any effectual 
aid by the nation most in sympathy with it. At home, 
the Puritan majority saw with indignation that the 
party in the Church which absorbed the Crown’s 
favour and patronage was approaching more nearly to 
the doctrine and ritual of Rome; Laud, now Bishop 


184 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


of London, who had the control of ecclesiastical 
affairs, leading this movement. When Parliament reas- 
sembled in January, 1629, the reform of the Church 
was the first subject to which the Commons turned, 
and, though the King tried to divert their attention, 
they persisted in reavowing the interpretation of the 
Articles laid down in the reign of Elizabeth, and 
repudiating any other. ‘They next dealt with the 
question of illegal customs. ‘The Crown farmers 
whom they summoned to the bar of the House 
having refused to answer the charges brought against 
them, on the plea of the King’s command, a protest 
against this evasion was drawn up by the patriot 
leaders, which the House was about to discuss, when 
the Speaker intimated that he had orders to adjourn. 
Determined to maintain their liberties, the door of 
the House was locked, and the Speaker forcibly kept 
in his seat, while Eliot denounced the Lord Treasurer 
(Weston) as responsible for the illegality in question. 
A series of resolutions was then passed that whoever 
brought in innovations in religion or advised the levy 
of subsidies without Parliamentary sanction was ‘‘a 
capital enemy to the kingdom and commonwealth,” 
and that every one willingly complying with such 
unlawful acts was ‘‘a betrayer of the liberty of 
England.” 

Parliament was immediately dissolved by Charles, 
and a proclamation announced that, in consequence 
of the “abuse” of their privileges by the Commons, 
he must abandon his practice of frequently summon- 
ing them. For the next eleven years he governed 
England by the sole authority of his will. Nine of 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 185 


the late Parliamentary leaders were committed to the 
Tower, their plea that arbitrary imprisonment was 
contrary to the King’s confirmation of the Petition of 
Right being overruled by the Judges. Eliot and two 
other members were sentenced to heavy fines and 
imprisonment during the King’s pleasure; the former, 
after a close confinement of three years and a half, 
dying in the Tower. Urged by the counsel of the 
Queen, who, now that Buckingham was removed, 
acquired an influence which soon became paramount,} 
Charles assumed the vé/e of an absolute sovereign. 
To free himself from the need of applying to Parlia- 
ment for subsidies, he studied to make peace abroad 
and to economise at home. After the fall of Rochelle, 
he had troops to spare for the aid of Protestantism 
in Germany, which was now crushed under the heel 
of the Empire, but he let the opportunity slip. The 
honour of reviving the hopes of the cause and re- 
covering the Palatinate was reserved for Gustavus 
Adolphus, King of Sweden, by whom an appeal was 
made to him for help at the outset of the campaign, 
but Charles refused it and made a treaty of peace 
with Spain in 1630. When Gustavus established 
his reputation as a victorious general, Charles was 
willing to share in his success, and sent a con- 
tingent of Scotch and English troops to take part 
in the war; but, after the recovery of the Palatinate, 
when Gustavus stipulated that before handing it 


1 For details respecting the part which the Queen took in 
influencing her husband’s foreign policy, the reader may 
consult Mr. Gardiner’s ‘* Personal Government of Charles I.,” 
passim. 


186 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


over to Frederick, Charles should declare war against 
Spain, he again refused, and withdrew from further 
action. 

Every expedient was tried that the ingenuity of 
the Crown officers could suggest to maintain the 
revenue. Prerogative rights, long disused, were re- 
vived. Landowners were obliged to compound for 
not taking upon them the rank of knighthood. The 
ancient forest-laws were enforced to the uttermost, 
and large disafforested tracts claimed as encroach- 
ments. Defective titles were searched out by a 
commission, and fines exacted for renewing old grants. 
The jurisdiction of the Court of Star-Chamber was 
extended to embrace every description of offence, 
and inflict pecuniary penalties, which brought in 
enormous profits. Monopolies, which Charles had 
undertaken to abandon, were granted to farmers, who 
enhanced the price of the common articles of daily 
consumption. Custom-duties were levied at the ports, 
and loans or benevolences exacted from every shire. 

The public discontent which these proceedings 
excited was partially checked by a prevailing convic- 
tion of the eventual triumph of justice and by the 
increase of commercial prosperity that accompanied 
peace. Many patriots, indeed, could not brook the 
humiliation of waiting upon a tyrant’s pleasure, and, 
in despair of regaining freedom, sought a new home 
beyond the Atlantic. The patience with which the 
bulk of the nation bore the violation of their liberties 
probably deceived the King into believing that he 
might pursue his despotic course with impunity. This 
belief was not shared by Sir Thomas Wentworth, a 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 187 


statesman who now filled a leading place in the 
administration of affairs. After a temporary allegiance 
to the party of patriotism, he abandoned it, and took 
service under Charles, who soon recognised his ad- 
ministrative capacity, made him a peer, and admitted 
him to equality with Laud in the Council. His 
powerful mind was possessed by the idea of exalting 
the royal prerogative to a height it had never yet 
reached in England, and of consolidating its power 
by such safeguards as would render resistance im- 
possible. The arena which he chose for carrying out 
his favourite policy of “thorough” was the govern- 
ment of Ireland, where he would be less fettered by 
public opinion than at home. 

The condition of that country, which, after the 
pacification of a revolt excited by Spain at the 
close of Elizabeth’s reign, had been dealt with as a 
reconquered territory, offered a tempting field for 
further experiments. ‘The old tribal system of land- 
tenure had been abolished, the chiefs constituted 
as land-owners, and their clansmen as tenants. The 
English law of trial by jury had been substituted for 
the ancient Brehon ‘judicature. Efforts were made 
to force the people to conform to the Protestant faith, 
but their only result was to bring the English Catholics 
of the Pale into closer union with their Celtic co- 
religionists. 

In 1610 a systematic confiscation of about 
two-thirds of the land in the north of Ireland was 
made by the English Government, upon the ground 
that the owners had taken part in a recent revolt. 
The territory thus seized was then allotted to a 


188 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


number of Scotch and English colonists. The 
prosperity and loyalty of Ulster still testifies to the 
local success which attended this measure, but, so far 
as the rest of Ireland was concerned, it intensified 
the hatred of the people to English rule, and their 
memory of the wrong has never died out. To Went- 
worth, however, who relied upon the power of terrorism, 
disaffection presented no difficulties. During the five 
years that followed his appointment as Lord Deputy 
in 1633, the hierarchy, the nobility, and the gentry 
in turn were forced to submit to his despotism. While, 
on the one hand, he made the law respected, re- 
pressed disorder, and developed commerce; on the 
other, he coerced juries, stirred up discord between 
Catholics and Protestants, threatened the Connaught 
landowners with a ‘‘ plantation” like that of Ulster, 
and summoned Parliament only to overawe it into 
voting large subsidies for the support of an army 
designed for the King’s service in England. If the 
object of his policy were to convince Charles that 
it was possible to make a tool of Parliament, he un- 
doubtedly succeeded, but at the cost of sacrificing 
his own life and the throne as well as the life of his 
master. 

A corresponding policy was simultaneously pursued 
in England by Laud, who, on the death of Abbot, 
was raised to the primacy. His aim was to elevate 
the Church of England to equality with that of Rome, 
both of them being in his view branches of the 
Universal Catholic Church as it existed in ideal 
perfection before the Council of Nice. While repu- 
diating the corruptions which had crept into the 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 189 


Romish doctrine and ritual, he aspired to free 
Anglicanism from the innovations introduced by 
Luther and Calvin, whose rejection of episcopacy 
nullified the claim of the Reformed communions 
of Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and France, to 
orthodoxy. He rigorously carried out this theory by 
sundering the ties of Christian fellowship which had 
united the English and Continental congregations 
since the Reformation. The English envoy in Paris 
was directed not to attend the Huguenot chapel at 
Charenton; English merchants and_ soldiers in 
Holland were forbidden to worship in Calvinistic 
churches. The Huguenot and Walloon refugees 
were deprived of permission to perform their own 
services, and ordered to conform to the Anglican 
ritual. Many of them, rather than comply, abandoned 
the country. Still greater severity was shown in 
coercing the Puritan party, by means of the Court 
of High Commission. ‘The ceremonies most ob- 
noxious to ultra-Protestant sensibilities were en- 
forced in every parish church, and the refractory 
clergy either suspended or deprived. The country 
gentlemen, with whom some of the ejected in- 
cumbents found shelter as private chaplains, were 
deprived of the privilege of keeping them. Vacant 
benefices were filled by High Churchmen, and an 
attempt on the part of the Puritans to purchase 
advowsons, and vest the appointment of suitable 
ministers in feoffees, was defeated by proceedings in 
the Star Chamber. ‘The strict observance of Sunday, 
to which the Puritans adhered, and which a statute 
had been passed to maintain, was set at nought by 


Igo POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Laud’s’ express orders. The “ Book of Sports “ 
drawn up by James, which declared what pastimes 
were lawful and desirable on Sabbath days and 
festivals, was reissued, and the clergy were directed to 
read it from the pulpit under pain of deprivation. 
The tendency of Laud’s anti-Puritan crusade to 
assimilate Anglican doctrine and practice to those 
of Rome was recognised by the Pope’s secret offer to 
make him a Cardinal, and, though this was declined, 
he could hardly have been blind to its significance. 
One of his Bishops, Montague, was actually a Roman 
Catholic ; and another, Goodman, made a dying con- 
fession of that faith. The Romish tenets of the 
real presence in the Eucharist, of prayers for the 
dead, and auricular confession were avowed by other 
of the prelates and clergy. The celibacy of priests 
was advocated by Laud himself. ‘The elaborate rites 
and splendid vestments of Romish worship were 
imitated in his chapel at Lambeth, and introduced 
into many cathedral and parish churches, all opposi- 
tion on the part of parsons or churchwardens being 
put down by legal penalties. As the~ purpose of 
this religious policy became apparent, the panic it 
excited was even greater than that aroused by the 
aggressions upon civil liberty. While the Protestant 
feeling of the country was thus outraged, the Catholic 
recusants enjoyed comparative immunity from fines, 
and were unmolested in their private devotions. 
The Queen threw open her chapel in Somerset 
House to all who chose to attend, and some- 
times took the young Prince with her to mass. 
The voice of Parliament being silenced, the zealots: 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. Igt 


of the Puritan party found no better means of pro- 
test than the issue of anonymous pamphlets, which 
were hawked from door to door. Publications to 
which the authors ventured to put their names ren- 
dered them liable to barbarous punishment. Alex- 
ander Leighton, a Puritan minister, who had written 
disrespectfully of the Queen and the Bishops, was 
cited by Laud in the Star Chamber, and condemned 
to degradation from his office, exposure in the pil- 
lory, flogging, mutilation, and branding, followed by 
imprisonment for life.- A similar sentence was in- 
flicted upon William Prynne, a learned antiquary, for 
publishing a fanatical tirade against the stage, which 
indirectly reflected upon the Queen. Puritans of a 
less violent type, hopeless of contending against such 
persecutors, accepted the alternative of emigrating to 
the American colonies of Virginia and New England. 
During the eleven years that Parliament was in abey- 
ance, the number of emigrants, of whom the bulk 
came from the eastern counties, is estimated at 
20,000. It included men of various callings, asso- 
ciated by the sympathy of strong religious feeling 
and narrow but profound convictions. The effect 
produced by the persecution they had undergone was 
shown by their abolition of episcopal government 
and prohibition of the Prayer-book in the worship 
of their Colonial churches. 

By the economy of Weston, Lord Portland, the 
arbitrary levying of imposts, and grants of monopo- 
lies, Charles succeeded in reducing the debts of the 
Crown and in equalising his revenue and expendi- 
ture. But no margin was left for extraordinary 


192 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


charges, and soon after Weston’s death, in 1635, the 
need of providing for them arose in connexion with 
foreign affairs. ‘The alliance between France and 
Holland, in which England had formerly joined, had 
grown since the Stuarts abandoned it into a formid- 
able rivalry against her. The ancient hostility of 
France had revived; the Dutch were now avowed com- 
petitors of the English merchants all over the world. 
A union of the two fleets would have given them com- 
mand of the Channel, and a project for partitioning 
the Spanish provinces in the Netherlands was reported 
to be in contemplation, whereby Dunkirk was to be 
allotted to France. To foil this project, Charles 
negotiated with Spain, and agreed to share with her 
the cost of providing a defensive fleet. At the 
instance of his law-officer, Noy, he revived an obsolete 
usage of demanding the provision of ships from the 
port-towns and sea-board counties, and by dint of 
fines and imprisonments exacted sufficient money to 
equip a fleet ; but, Spain having failed to fulfil her 
contract, Charles would not venture upon the ex- 
pedition alone. By Laud’s advice, however, he 
resolved to increase the navy, by extending the levy 
of ‘“‘ship-money ” to the whole country. ‘This fresh 
violation of constitutional law gave an increased 
impetus to emigration, several peers and landowners 
preparing for settlement in America. Among the 
number was John Hampden, who had retired to his 
estate when the Parliament of 1629 was dissolved. 
But he abandoned the idea of emigration at the 
bidding of a sudden impulse to withstand the illegal 
exaction of ship-money in Buckinghamshire, and 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 193 


headed the list of those who refused to pay it. In 
May, 1637, Hampden was summoned by a writ from 
the Exchequer to show cause why his lands should 
not be charged with ship-money, and the matter was 
argued before the Bench for twelve days in the winter 
of that year. While the Crown relied upon its pre- 
rogative, it was proved on behalf of Hampden that 
the impost had only been levied upon occasions of 
danger within the maritime counties and sea-ports, 
and that all arbitrary taxation was disallowed by the 
Petition of Right. The Court delayed judgment for 
several months, and in the meantime an opposition 
to the King’s despotic course from a foreign quarter, 
which had long been gathering force, assumed a 
menacing aspect. 

Since the revival by James of episcopal govern- 
ment in Scotland, and the subjection of the General 
Assembly to the Crown, that country had remained 
quiescent. The late King, satisfied with this modicum 
of authority, and knowing the temper of the people 
too well to attempt to force the English Liturgy and 
Canons upon them, had rejected Laud’s advice to 
that effect. But Charles had more obstinacy and less 
acumen, and when Laud, now in full power, repeated 
this counsel, he determined to follow it. The first 
innovation was cautiously made by directing the 
Bishops to assume their canonical vestments, but was 
followed by a royal warrant that all ministers should 
wear the surplice. Resistance was at once aroused ; 
parish meetings were held throughout the country, 
and ministers who obeyed the mandate were aban- 
doned by their flocks. ‘Though several nobles 

O 


IQ4 . POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


supported this opposition, Charles disregarded it. In 
1636 he issued a Book of Canons, which put the 
whole government of the Church under episcopal 
rule, subordinated to the Crown, and in the following 
year prescribed a new Liturgy, founded upon the 
Anglican Prayer-book, in place of the Book of 
Common Order, which Knox had modelled upon 
the Liturgy of Calvin. In July, 1637, the first attempt 
to use the new Liturgy in St. Giles’s Church, Edin- 
burgh, led to a riot, which obliged the authorities to 
clear the church. After applying to the Judges, who 
decided that the royal injunction did not require the 
use of the Liturgy, but its purchase only, the clergy 
discontinued the service, but were peremptorily 
ordered by Laud to resume it. Protests against this 
order were sent in from all parts of the kingdom, the 
nobles were charged with petitions to the King, and 
an organised opposition was formed in Edinburgh. 

This revolt emboldened the English Puritans to 
intemperate denunciations of the tyranny under 
which they were writhing. Prynne from his prison 
put forth a tract which reviled the Bishops as wolves 
and agents of hell, and a clergyman named Burton 
appealed to the resistance of all Christians against 
them. The writers were summoned by Laud into 
the Star Chamber, and sentenced to his favourite 
punishments of mutilation in the pillory and im- 
prisonment for life. An immense crowd applauded 
the victims as martyrs, and groaned at their sufferings, 
but these symptoms of public discontent only pro- 
voked Laud to redoubled severities. 

In June, 1638, while the agitation was at its height, 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 195 


the Judges delivered their decision in the case of the 
King against Hampden, a majority of seven against five 
pronouncing that all statutes were void which limited 
the King’s power to tax his subjects at will. Though 
the obvious effect of this decree was to rivet the yoke 
of tyranny, it was followed by no immediate outbreak ; 
the nation, which already watched the progress of 
affairs in Scotland with keen interest, discerning 
that the same issue was at stake upon both sides of 
the Tweed. ‘The resistance organised by the Scots 
to the enforcement of the new Liturgy took the form 
of a renewal of the Covenant drawn up on the 
occasion of Mary Stuart’s intrigues with Spain to 
overthrow the Reformation and restore the Romish 
faith. In March, 1638, this was signed by an en- 
thusiastic assembly in the Grey Friars’ Churchyard, 
Edinburgh, and subscriptions to it were obtained 
from all parts of the country. The Marquis of 
Hamilton, whom the King sent to put down the 
agitation, was met by a unanimous demand for the 
withdrawal of the Liturgy and Canons and the resto- 
ration of freedom to Parliament and the General 
Assembly. His threats of war were disregarded, and 
the Lords of the Scottish Council were so alarmed 
by the aspect of affairs that they advised Charles to 
yield. Rejecting this advice, he endeavoured to raise 
money and troops for the work of coercion. After 
applying in vain to Spain for a loan, or for a small 
force to enable him to hold Edinburgh, he was 
obliged to equip a fleet with funds subscribed by the 
English Catholics. The Scots meantime prepared 
for a campaign. Many volunteers who had enlisted 
O 2 


196 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


on the Protestant side in Germany were summoned 
home; a tax was raised throughout the kingdom, 
and the command of the army entrusted to General 
Leslie, who had served under Gustavus Adolphus. 
Their determined attitude forced the King to tem- 
porise. Hamilton was instructed to promise that the 
Covenant should be allowed, the Liturgy revoked, 
and episcopal authority curtailed; that the General 
Assembly should be immediately summoned, and 
Parliament convoked in the following year. In 
November, 1638, the Assembly accordingly met, but 
no sooner indicated its intention of denouncing 
episcopal government than it was dissolved by 
Hamilton. In defiance of his mandate, a majority 
of the members resolved that the session should con- 
tinue, and passed a series of Acts which restored 
Presbyterian Church-government, and set aside the 
High Commission, Liturgy, and Canons prescribed 
by Laud as null and void. 

Charles now resolved to put down the rebellion by 
force, and was vehemently urged to that course by 
Laud and Wentworth, who dreaded the effect of a 
successful resistance in Scotland upon the English 
Puritans. Their sympathy with the rebels was 
notorious, and it was surmised that the leaders of the 
two parties were in correspondence. ‘Though Charles 
mustered an army at York and sent a fleet into the 
Forth, he hesitated to cross the border. But the 
resolution of the Scots was firmer than his own. 
Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dumbarton were seized, and 
a strong force occupied Aberdeen. As soon as the 
fleet entered the Forth, Leslie marched to the Tweed, 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES, 197 


and when the royal troops advanced to meet him 
put his troops in array of battle. But the King soon 
found that he could not trust his own army, and was 
constrained to temporise once more by assenting to 
the demands of the Scots for a free Assembly and a 
new Parliament. ‘Their leaders, who put no faith in 
his promises, prepared for the worst by seeking the 
aid of France. The favourable reception of their 
overtures by Richelieu coming to the knowledge of 
Charles, he sought to turn it to advantage. Wentworth 
(now raised to be Earl of Strafford) advised him to 
summon an English Parliament, and appeal to its 
loyalty, upon the production of this treasonable 
correspondence, for a large subsidy to suppress the 
rebellion. The writs were issued, and Parliament 
met in April, 1640. But its composition and temper 
were unchanged by the lapse of eleven years, and 
Charles and his advisers failed to delude the patriot 
leaders into voting for a war with their Scottish 
brethren. Before supplies were granted, they insisted 
upon the redress of the wrongs inflicted on the 
national faith and liberty. After a vain attempt to 
bribe the Commons by offering to abandon ship- 
money, Charles dissolved Parliament. His evil genius, 
Strafford, persuaded him that, with the aid of 
Irish troops whom he had collected, the army mus- 
tered in the north was strong enough to overpower 
the Scots. But the Covenanter generals, Leslie and 
Montrose, were already prepared for the campaign. 
Crossing the border in August, their army encountered 
the royal troops at a ford of the Tyne, and effected 
its passage with little resistance, the discomfited 


198 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


English retreating first to Newcastle, and thence to 
York. From Newcastle the Scots sent proposals of 
peace to the King, praying that their grievances 
should be considered and a firm peace settled, by 
the advice of the English Parliament. Unable to 
rely upon his troops, which proved too undisciplined 
for active service, Charles was forced to negotiate for 
a truce. From his difficulties at home no escape 
seemed possible without resummoning Parliament. 
A petition to this effect, presented to him by twelve 
peers, setting forth the disaffected condition of the 
country, was seconded by the citizens of London and 
the gentry of Yorkshire. All attempts to raise a loan 
from the great mercantile bodies failed. A London 
mob attacked Laud’s palace at Lambeth, and when 
one of the ringleaders was executed for treason, his 
followers took reprisals by breaking open the prisons. 
The newly-levied troops mutinied against their officers 
who belonged to Laud’s party, and manifested their 
Puritan sympathies by tearing down the altar-rails in 
the churches as they passed. Yielding to the neces- 
sity, Charles convoked a great Council of the peers 
at York, at which he announced his intention of 
summoning Parliament, and conferred with them 
upon the urgency of a settlement with the Scots. 
Terms were at last arranged whereby the: Scottish 
army was to retain possession of Durham and North- 
umberland, and be maintained by the King until a 
definitive treaty should be signed, the English army 
meantime remaining undisbanded. 

The new Parliament, known hereafter as the Long 
Parliament, met on November 3, 1640. Pym, Hamp- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 199 


den, and the patriotic party were strengthened by 
notable accessions. ‘The nation’s sense of the crisis 
was attested by a sudden suspension of the tide of 
emigration to New England, a copious issue of political 
pamphlets, and an influx into the House of petitions 
from all parts of the country. ‘The first task of the 
Commons was to draw up a list of the leading 
agents of royal misgovernment, and frame indictments 
against them. Strafford, as the master-spirit and an 
apostate from the faith of patriotism, headed the 
list. His impeachment was voted, and he was com- 
mitted to the Tower. Finch, Lord Keeper, and 
Windebank, a Secretary of State, fled into exile to 
escape similar charges. Laud was the next to fall, 
and Sir Robert Berkeley, one of the Judges who 
had decreed the legality of ship-money, shared his 
fate. By a series of Acts the illegality of that impost 
was affirmed, the judgment in Hampden’s case set 
aside, and taxation without the consent of Parliament 
declared invalid. Prynne and other victims of Laud’s 
cruelty were released from prison, and made a tri- 
umphal entry into London. Commissioners were 
despatched into every county to demolish or remove 
images and other “reliques of idolatry out of all 
churches and chapels.” The debates of a Com- 
mittee appointed to consider the question of Church- 
reform manifested great diversity of opinion, a Pres- 
byterian section demanding the abolition of episcopal 
government, and another, led by the younger Sir 
Harry Vane, being as hostile to Presbyterianism as 
to Prelacy. The bulk of the House, however, agreed, 
as a modicum of reform, to the exclusion of the 


200 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


Bishops from the House of Lords, and in March, 
1641, a Bill to that effect was carried. 

The King was, for the moment, too paralysed by 
the rapidity of these assaults on his prerogative to 
attempt resistance. Intending to save Strafford’s life 
he did not interfere with his impeachment; but when, 
after a fortnight’s trial, the Commons abandoned 
proceedings the success of which was questionable, 
and substituted a bill of attainder that was carried by 
both Houses, Charles saw a chance of intervening. 
Negotiations for a compromise took place between 
him and the Parliamentary leaders. The arrange- 
ment in contemplation would have entrusted them 
with the chief administration of home and foreign 
affairs, but all hope of effecting it was soon dispelled 
by evidence of the King’s bad faith. Urged by the 
Queen, who was furious at the idea of yielding to 
rebels against the Crown and the Puritan enemies of 
her faith, Charles lent a favourable ear to two schemes 
of intrigue. One was suggested by some of the Scotch 
lords, who had quarrelled among themselves, that he 
should head a reactionary movement against the 
Covenanters. The other was a plot of certain officers 
of the army, still undisbanded at York, to march to 
London, set Strafford free, and coerce the Houses 
to obedience. This last plot became known to Pym, 
who at once circumvented it. ‘The House of Lords, 
though leaning to the side of the Crown, was alarmed 
at the prospect of military terrorism. ‘The Commons 
insisted that the life of the minister who was the 
chief representative of tyranny should be forfeited. 
The King, who had given Strafford a pledge of safety, 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 201 


vetoed the bill of attainder. But once more urged by 
the Queen, who hoped to make the Earl a scapegoat, 
Charles yielded. On May 12, 1641, Strafford was 
beheaded on Tower Hill. A burst of rejoicing 
attested the nation’s sense of relief from danger. 
Implacable to those who had thus forced his in- 
clination, Charles henceforth looked upon the Acts 
to which he had assented as revocable whenever 
he regained his freedom. He suffered the chief 
mstruments of Laud’s tyranny, the Courts of Star 
Chamber and High Commission, to be suppressed 
by Parliament without opposition. But he took the 
earliest opportunity of breaking his thraldom. On 
the death of Strafford, terms were arranged for the 
disbanding of both the English and Scotch armies 
and the settlement of a peace. Seizing the occasion 
to win popularity in his native land, he started for 
Edinburgh in August. There he harangued the 
Parliament, offered to confirm all the Acts of their 
recent session, and consented to appoint their 
nominees to vacant offices of state. He was equally 
complaisant to the General Assembly, attended the 
Presbyterian worship, and chose a leading Covenanter 
for his chaplain. Dissensions among the nobles, 
however, marred his plan of forming a strong Royalist 
party, and the strict watch kept upon his movements 
by commissioners despatched by the English Par- 
hament rendered it impossible to effect a counter- 
revolution by surprise. While he was in Scotland, 
news came from Ireland which quickened the ap- 
prehension of the patriot leaders respecting his real 
intentions. ‘The state of quiescence to which Straf- 


202 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


- ford’s intimidation had reduced that country was 
changed into anarchy as soon as his fall became 
known. In October, 1641, a plot, secretly hatched 
by Sir Phelim O’Neal, resulted in a massacre of the 
settlers in Ulster, which was followed by scenes of 
carnage and violence in other parts of the island. 
As the revolt proceeded, it took the form of a 
Catholic confederation against Protestant rule, to 
which some of its leaders gave the semblance of 
a Royalist movement by means of a forged com- 
mission purporting to be issued by Charles from 
Edinburgh. The mistrust which Charles had aroused 
in England was shown by the credence given to this 
forgery, and was warranted by the evidence of his 
intention to turn the revolt to account by raising an 
army that would overawe Parliament. 

Before the King’s return to London in November, 
a party in support of his cause had been formed 
within the House of Commons. Under the leadership 
of Hyde (afterwards Lord Clarendon) it rallied round 
him many who, while opposed to the policy of Laud 
and Strafford, were loyally attached to the Crown and 
episcopacy, and hostile to the Puritan spirit of inde- 
pendence. The signs of reaction stimulated Pym and 
his colleagues to draw up a Remonstrance, which vin- 
dicated all that they had done upon the ground of 
principle, disclaimed revolutionary projects, and 
restricted further reforms to the execution of the 
statutes against Catholic recusants, the appointment of 
trusted ministers, and safeguards for the performance 
of justice. The adoption of this Remonstrance, 
though hotly contested by the Royalist party, was 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 203 


eventually carried, and approved by the country. 
Political passion was now stirred on both sides, and, 
in spite of Pym’s efforts to preserve moderation, 
broke out into violence upon the question of exclud- 
ing Bishops from the House of Lords. That House, 
having thrown out the first Bill passed by the 
Commons, delayed its consideration when sent up a 
second time. Popular indignation at the delay found 
vent in a demonstration against the Bishops as they 
drove to St. Stephen’s. Eleven of the Bench there- 
upon absented themselves from Parliament, and pro- 
tested that all acts done without them would be void. 
Their conduct was censured by their fellow-peers, 
who committed them to the Tower, but the incident 
served to inflame the Royalists against Parliament, 
and provoke conflict between the troops that were 
mustered for the war in Ireland and the London 
populace.!. Urged by the infatuated counsel of the 
Queen to resort to extreme measures, Charles, in 
January, 1642, suddenly instructed the Attorney- 
General to impeach Pym, Hampden, and three other 
members of the Commons, at the bar of the Lords. 
After vainly sending a herald to demand their 
surrender, he visited the House of Commons in 
person to enforce obedience. As soon as his coming 
was announced, the five members were directed by 
the House to withdraw. His angry summons was 
received in silence ; and, in reply to his question as 


1 The party-names of ‘‘ Cavalier” and ‘* Roundhead ” 
originated during this conflict, from the prominence of soldiers 
of fortune among the troops, and of apprentices, who wore 
closely-cropped hair, among the populace. 


204 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


to where they were hidden, the Speaker (Lenthall) 
protested that he could only see or say what the 
House commanded him. Charles had to retire dis- 
appointed, and met with a similar rebuff from the 
Corporation of London, with whom the five members 
had taken refuge. His writs for their arrest were not 
executed by the Sheriff, and a proclamation declaring 
them traitors was ignored. ‘The fatal mistake he had 
committed alienated some of his Parliamentary sup- 
porters, and the threatening attitude of the people 
intimidated his troops, so that he was for the time 
powerless. On learning that the five members were 
about to return to Westminster, escorted by a popular 
guard, he withdrew to Hampton Court. 

The imminence of war was now recognised by 
both parties. Lord Newcastle was sent by -the 
King to raise men in the north, and the Queen 
crossed the Channel to obtain arms by pledging 
the Crown jewels. Parliament voted that the 
Tower, Hull, and Portsmouth should be secured 
in the national interest, and bodies of mounted 
volunteers rode up from Kent and Buckingham- 
shire to offer their services. The House of Lords 
was constrained to pass the Bill for the exclusion 
of the Bishops by the evident intention of the 
Commons to legislate alone, if necessary, and this 
was the last measure which obtained the royal 
assent. Charles, having vetoed a Bill for raising a 
militia, the Parliament, on its own authority, 
appointed Lord-leutenants with requisite powers. 
He himself procured troops by commissions of array, 
but to provide them with arms had to demand 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 205 


entrance into the arsenal of Hull. Its governor, by 
the instructions of Parliament, declined to admit 
him, and this incident precipitated the outbreak of 
war. The Royalist party in both Houses, headed by 
Falkland and Hyde, withdrew to join the King at 
York. Freed from their opposition, the patriotic 
party completed the organisation of the militia, 
appointed Lord Warwick to the command of the 
fleet, and applied to the City of London for a loan, 
which was generously granted. A last effort was 
made by Parliament to treat with Charles, but the 
terms proposed, which would have vested in its 
hands the choice of the chief ministers of state, 
the appointment of guardians for the royal children, 
and the general control of ecclesiastical, civil, and 
military government, were scornfully rejected. His 
decision was accepted by both parties as conclusive. 
The Parliamentary and Royalist armies were quickly 
put into the field, and on October 23, 1642, the first 
battle of the Civil War was fought at Edge Hill. 


206 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


CHAPTER” 1s 


Foreign influences on political history from the outbreak of 
the Civil War to the Restoration. 


From the date of his final breach with Parliament 
Charles virtually ceased to reign. ‘The issues for the 
decision of which the two parties resorted to war were 
wholly changed before its close. At the outset, all 
that the Parliamentary party desired was to compel 
the King to govern constitutionally. A considerable 
section of his own adherents was animated by the 
hope that, after the clash of arms, a peaceful recon- 
ciliation would be concluded. But the original leaders 
of the patriotic party passed away early in the struggle, 
Hampden falling on the battle-field in June, 1643, 
and Pym dying six months afterwards. Their places 
were filled by new leaders, of whom Cromweil, Vane, 
and Ireton were the most influential, whose different 
characters and aims gave an altered aspect to the 
contest. Lord Falkland, the most distinguished and 
moderate of the King’s counsellors, also fell before the 
ultimate issues of the war had become apparent. The 
fervour of religious enthusiasm which, over-riding 

traditional scruples of loyalty, inspired the ‘‘Iron- — 
-sides” of Cromwell and carried them on from victory 
to victory, was the efficient cause by which those 
issues were determined. Against so potent a force 
the chivalry and romantic fidelity to the Crown, which 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 207 


were the motive powers of the Royalist party, proved 
a feeble and unavailing barrier. 

The details of the fratricidal conflict which, after 
many fluctuations, ended in the triumph of the Par- 
liamentary over the Royalist forces, and the capture, 
trial, and execution of the King, do not fall within the 
scope of this work. It must suffice to refer to such 
foreign influences as served to modify the course of 
events. Foremost of them upon the side of the 
Crown was the personal influence of the Queen, whose 
haughty temper urged her husband to an obstinate 
persistence in his fatal career, while her energy in 
obtaining arms from abroad enabled him to protract 
the struggle when it was really hopeless. The sup- 
port which, owing to her exertions, was tendered to 
his cause by the English Catholics wrought him more 
harm than good, by confirming the conviction of his 
opponents that the safety of Protestantism was at stake. 
Even more disastrous was the aid he sought to obtain 
from the confederated Irish Catholics, who, after the 
massacre of the English settlers already narrated, 
formed themselves into an Assembly, which assumed 
sovereign power and levied troops for the inde- 
pendence of the island. While an army commanded 
by -Lord Ormond was holding them at bay in the 
King’s name, Charles was carrying on an intrigue with 
the rebels through the medium of Lord Glamorgan, 
who succeeded in arranging an armistice. This left 
Ormond’s force at liberty for employment in England, 
and Charles followed up the manceuvre by treating 
with the rebels, who undertook to effect a landing in 
Argyleshire simultaneously with a rising of the High- 


208 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


land clans under Montrose, an ex-leader of the - 
Covenanters, now one of his adherents. Upon the 
disclosure of this scheme, many Royalist officers 
resigned their commissions, and several noblemen 
who had joined the King at Oxford returned to 
London. ‘The effect produced upon the Parlia- 
mentary party in England and the Covenanters in 
Scotland was to bring them into closer accord. 
The adoption of the Presbyterian system by the 
English Church was the one condition which the 
Scots had demanded from Pym and Vane for assist- 
ing them at a time when the King’s cause appeared 
to be gaining ground. ‘The negotiations might 
have fallen through but for the revelation of the 
common danger of both kingdoms. The bargain was 
ratified by the solemn acceptance of the Covenant 
by the House of Commons in September, 1643, 
together with a pledge for the union of the two king- 
doms in firm peace and religious conformity. 

The co-operation of the Scottish army in the war 
against the King that succeeded this event in 1644 was 
foremost among the foreign influences upon the side of 
the Parliament. Its first effect was seen in the victory 
of Marston Moor, which routed the Royalists in the 
North. The rising of the Highlanders under Montrose, 
supported by the landing of the Irish Catholicsin Argyle- 
shire, soon afterwards recalled the Scottish army to 
the border, and a series of successes gained by this 
diversion in the King’s favour threatened for a time 
to undo the work which the Parliament had accom- 
plished. But the final defeat of Montrose at Philip- 
haugh, following upon the rout of the King at Naseby, 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 209 


dispelled any fears of a reaction in Scotland, and set 
the army of the Covenanters free for interposition in 
England. ‘The part which it played in the closing 
scenes of the Civil War cannot be understood without 
taking into account the operation of other influences 
whose origin also was more or less foreign. 
Nonconformity from the Anglican Church, although 
actually dating from the time of the Reformation, was, 
for nearly a century afterwards, too obscure to be 
reckoned as a factor in the national development. 
During Elizabeth’s reign, when political necessity 
forced the Government to exact conformity as a 
guarantee of loyalty, dissidence of opinion upon the 
subject of ecclesiastical discipline began to appear in 
the Puritan ranks; and many who refused to con- 
form took refuge in Holland. There the Calvinistic 
bias which already characterised them became 
intensified, and fresh divergences were gradually 
manifested. One dissenting community,—known as 
Brownists, from the name of its reputed founder, 
Robert Brown,—after some years’ residence at 
Amsterdam, returned to England in 1620, with the 
intention of thence embarking for the New World. 
A section of the body, historically famous as the 
Pilgrim Fathers, sailed in the Mayflower for the 
coast of Massachusetts, where they founded the 
colony of Plymouth; and, being afterwards joined 
by other detachments of the body which had re- 
mained at home, eventually spread over New England. 
The claim of each congregation to preserve its own 
independence as a self-contained church became 
recognised as a distinctive trait, and originated the 
p 


210 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


sectarian name of Independents. Another sect, 
which deviated from its Puritan brethren by insisting 
upon the necessity of adult baptism, acquired the 
name of Baptists. Taking advantage of the mode- 
ration of Archbishop Abbot, many dissenting bodies 
came back to England, but were prevented from 
making converts under the rigorous rule of Laud. A 
large increase was made to the Independent sect 
soon after the opening of the Long Parliament by 
the return of a number of New England settlers, 
headed by Hugh Peters. A year later eighty Non- 
conformist congregations were reckoned in London 
alone, and many others were dispersed about the 
country, especially in the eastern counties. Among 
these miscellaneous congregations, which were largely 
impregnated with foreign ideas, the seeds of future 
sectarian developments for the present lay dormant. 
The Presbyterian system had gradually commended 
itself to the Puritan party in the Church of England 
since it was first advocated by Cartwright in the 
reign of Elizabeth; and the Romish proclivities of 
Laud and his brother-prelates had disposed a large 
number of moderate churchmen to countenance the 
abolition of episcopacy. The acceptance of the 
Covenant by Parliament and the pledge given to 
Scotland for the promotion of religious conformity 
occasioned no public dissatisfaction. Pursuant to 
that pledge, an Assembly of divines was summoned 
to sit at Westminster, and instructed to revise the 
Articles, draw up a confession of faith, a manual of 
worship, and a scheme of government, which were 
finally submitted to Parliament, and formulated in 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. aie 


ordinances. But, meantime, the growth of Noncon- 
formity had rapidly increased, and the chief adherents 
of its principles were to be found among the stoutest 
soldiers of the Parliamentary army, the “ Ironside” 
regiment organised by Cromwell. 

A Puritan gentleman of Huntingdonshire, who had 
sat in Parliament since 1628, he had already dis- 
tinguished himself in its debates as a fervid champion 
of the patriotic cause, but his genius as a leader of 
men was not disclosed until the opening of the war. 
Discerning that the London trainbands, of whom 
the first Parliamentary levies were composed, were 
far inferior in spirit and breeding to the knights and 
gentlemen who formed the bulk of the Royalist army, 
he set himself to bring a new force into play by 
enrolling a regiment of religious enthusiasts among 
the Puritan farmers of the eastern counties. Though 
himself satisfied to accept the Presbyterian trans- 
formation of the national Church, he recognised the 
necessity of tolerating those who dissented from any 
State Church whatever, and did not scruple to admit 
them into his regiment. The resistless valour of the 
Ironsides at Marston Moor, Winceby, and Newbury 
justified all their leader’s confidence. After the 
passing of the “Self-renouncing Ordinance,” intro- 
duced by Cromwell and Vane to exclude members 
of Parliament from military command, the conduct 
of the war, which had languished in the hands of 
such generals as Lords Essex and Manchester, was 
entrusted to men embarrassed by no aristocratic 
reserve or political timidity. Under Sir Thomas 
Fairfax as Commander-in-chief and Cromwell and 

P 2 


212 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Ireton as his lieutenants, the composition of the 
Ironside regiment was applied upon a larger scale. 
“Godly” men of all ranks and all persuasions who 
were willing to serve were enrolled in the “‘ New 
Model,” as it was called,—the Act which authorised 
its formation containing a clause to dispense, upon 
occasion, with the signature of the Covenant. 

Such open toleration of Nonconformity gave great 
offence to the London clergy, and excited much 
opposition in Parliament itself. Still more offensive 
was it to the Scots, who denounced it as a breach of 
the international compact. With the view of checking 
what they regarded as a revolutionary movement, 
negotiations were opened with the King ; and, though 
these were abandoned by him, in consequence of the 
temporary success of his arms, they were actively 
renewed after his crushing defeat at Naseby. Hoping 
to benefit by the division in his enemies’ camp, 
Charles intrigued at once with the Presbyterians and 
the Independents. Meantime, the army of the New 
Model was pursuing its triumphant course; and in 
April, 1646, pressed the King so closely that he had 
to choose between escaping from England or sur- 
rendering to one section of his foes. He decided on 
the latter course ; and, eluding the troops of Fairfax, 
found his way by a circuitous route into the head- 
quarters of the Scots at Newark. Relying upon the 
loyalty of his hereditary subjects and the support of 
their Presbyterian allies in the English Parliament, he 
hoped to recover his lost power upon easy terms. 
The Houses, however, were less yielding than he 
expected ; stipulating that the command of the army 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 213 


and the fleet should be given up to them for twenty 
years ; that Royalists who had taken up arms for 
the King should be excluded from office ; episcopacy 
abolished, and the Presbyterian system substituted. 
The Scots, who, with the King in their camp, had 
retired to Newcastle, urged him to agree to these 
conditions ; and he was advised to accept them by 
letters from the Queen herself, who was now a refugee 
in France. But, counting upon the growth of dis- 
sension and the action of time in his favour, he 
refused to do so. The Presbyterian party in the 
House of Commons, under their leader, Holles, then 
endeavoured to take the matter into their own hands. 
Regarding the army of the New Model as the real 
obstacle to religious uniformity, yet unable to disband 
it so long as the Scots remained in the field and 
held possession of the King, they proposed terms to 
them for surrendering his person and returning home. 
The Scots, weary of their fruitless efforts to bring 
about a settlement with the King, eventually agreed 
(in January, 1647) to take £400,000 in discharge of 
their claims upon England, transferred Charles into 
the keeping of a Committee of the two Houses, and 
recrossed the border. 

Holles and his party, who commanded a majority 
in the Commons, proceeded to carry out their design 
of uniformity by establishing presbyteries throughout 
the country and ordering the officers of the army to 
subscribe the Covenant. But in attempting to dis- 
band the New Model they miscalculated their 
strength. Though for the most part farmers and 
tradesmen destitute of political ambition, these 


214 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


soldiers were animated by a genuine enthusiasm for 
religious liberty and a resolute purpose not to return 
to their ordinary callings until their work was accom- 
plished. A council of ‘‘adjutators,” or assistants, 
whom they elected in place of their former council 
of officers, learning that the Parliament was about to 
remove the King to London, and raise a fresh army 
in his name, promptly despatched a body of 500 
troopers, under Cornet Joyce, to Holmby House, 
Northamptonshire, where Charles was residing, and 
dispossessed the Parliamentary commissioners who 
had charge of his person. Cromwell, when accused 
by the Presbyterian party of having originated this 
step, disclaimed the responsibility, but seized the 
opportunity to ally himself with the army, which 
marched within a few miles of London, and thence 
issued a manifesto to the Parliament. Disavowing 
all intention of interfering with civil government or 
of preventing a settlement of the Presbyterian system, 
they stipulated for toleration of other religious 
tenets, until the nation had finally decided upon an 
established faith; and that Holles and ten members 
of his party, who were obstacles in the way of a 
peaceful decision, should withdraw from the Com- 
mons. After much debate, the obnoxious members 
retired, and Parliament appointed commissioners to 
treat with the army and the King. The conditions 
imposed by Ireton, who conducted the negotiations 
on behalf of the New Model, were singularly mode- 
rate, and displayed his grasp of the principles of 
toleration. Seven leading Royalists were to be 
banished, and the rest pardoned; Parliament was to 


* FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 215 


have the control of the army and navy for ten years, 
and the nomination of officers of state; the clergy 
were to be excluded from all but spiritual functions ; 
belief and worship were to be freed from restraint ; 
Acts enforcing the Covenant, the use of the Prayer- 
book, or attendance at church, even upon Catholics, 
were to be repealed; Parliament was to be sum- 
moned every three years; the electoral franchise 
reformed; taxation equalised ; monopolies abandoned ; 
and legal proceedings simplified. Cromwell gave 
these proposals the weight of his sanction, and both 
cherished some hope of bringing the King to an 
honest acceptance of them. But he was still bent 
upon pitting one party against another, and deceiving 
both for his own advantage. While these negotia- 
tions were in progress, the Londoners, who sympa- 
thised with the Presbyterian faction, broke into the 
Commons, and forced them to recall the eleven 
members who had been expelled; whereupon the 
Independent party took refuge with the army. 
Cromwell put a sudden end to the agitation, which 
Charles had secretly encouraged, by marching at the 
head of his soldiers to London, and restoring the 
House of Commons to its previous condition. Foiled 
in the design of provoking an English diversion in 
his favour, Charles turned to Scotland, where the 
bulk of the Presbyterians were indignant at the 
action of the New Model; and his partisan, the Duke 
of Hamilton, had secured a majority in the coming 
Parliament. Deluding Cromwell and Ireton to the 
last with the hope of a settlement, the King, in 
November, 1647, suddenly escaped from his guards 


216 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


at Hampton Court, and took refuge in Carisbrook 
Castle. There, while renewing his negotiations with 
the Parliament, he secretly agreed to re-establish the 
Presbyterian system in England as the one condition 
upon which the Scots were willing to support him by 
an invading army. ‘The tidings of this unexpected 
aid incited the Royalists to fresh efforts, and insur- 
rection broke out in several parts of England and 
Wales. ‘The Presbyterian faction in Parliament took 
courage to declare its adherence to monarchy, and 
to pass a stringent statute against the doctrine of 
toleration. 

The spirit of the New Model was roused to its 
pristine vigour by the danger of the crisis. Unde- 
ceived at last by the evidence of the King’s insin- 
cerity, the army resolved, at a solemn assembly, that, 
if they returned successful from the task of crushing 
the revolt, they would call ‘‘ Charles Stuart, that man 
of blood, to account for the blood he has shed and 
mischief he has done to his utmost against the Lord’s 
cause and people.” While Fairfax put down the 
Royalist risings in Kent and Essex, and besieged 
Colchester, Cromwell marched into Wales and forced 
Pembroke to surrender. Meantime, an army of 
20,000 Scots, under Hamilton, had crossed the 
border and advanced to Preston. With a force of 
but half their number, Cromwell utterly routed them, 
and then made a rapid march into Scotland, where 
he dispossessed the Royalists, and reinstated the 
authority of Argyle, who was loyal to the English 
alliance. Recalled to England by the news that the 
Presbyterian faction was again treating with the King}; 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 217 


and reinforced by the troops of Fairfax, the army 
insisted upon its demand for “‘justice on the King”; 
coupling therewith the stipulation that a new Parlia- 
ment should be elected. Charles was meantime pro- 
tracting his negotiations with the Parliamentary com- 
missioners, in the expectation that a new Royalist 
movement in Ireland might enable him to set his 
foes at defiance. ‘The demands of the army excited 
so much alarm in Parliament that the majority were 
ready to yield to any terms which the King asked. 
The decision of the army-leaders was quickly taken. 
A troop of horse was sent to Carisbrook, where 
Charles had been virtually a prisoner, and carried 
him off to Hurst Castle. Another troop, under 
Colonel Pride, was despatched to the House of 
Commons, and arrested or expelled 140 members 
of the Presbyterian faction who constituted the 
majority. The remainder (subsequently known as 
the “Rump”), who were in accord with the army, 
proceeded to carry out its will. A resolution was 
passed for the trial of the King by the Commons 
alone (the Lords refusing to concur), and a Court 
of Commissioners nominated as his judges, with 
Bradshaw, an eminent lawyer, as their President. 
On the ground of the incompetency of the Court, 
Charles refused to plead to the charges of treason, 
tyranny, and murder brought against him, Thirty- 
two witnesses were examined in support of them, and 
after a seven days’ trial, he was found guilty and 
condemned to death. Much popular sympathy in 
his favour was evoked by his dignified bearing during 
the tria!, and the self-possession which he retained to 


218 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


the last. The sight of his uplifted head was witnessed 
by a pitying crowd with sobs and groans. 

The judicial sentence of the Commons upon the 
King was followed, after short intervals, by the passing 
of Acts which abolished monarchy, established the 
people of England as a Commonwealth, and vested 
supreme authority in its representatives in Parlia- 
ment. But the reception which the tidings of the 
King’s execution met with at home and abroad was 
calculated to shake confidence in the stability of the 
new government. Public disaffection was shown, 
not only by Royalist intrigues, but by the retirement 
from the bench of half the Judges, and the refusal 
of hundreds of the clergy and civil functionaries to 
take a pledge of fealty to the Republic. In Scotland, 
Argyle and his fellow-Presbyterians whom Cromwell 
had installed in power denounced the abolition of 
monarchy, and invited Charles, Prince of Wales, who 
had taken refuge in Holland, to claim the throne. 
In Ireland, Ormond had dexterously united all parties 
on behalf of the Crown, and urged the Prince to put 
himself at their head. On the Continent, the States- 
General of Holland were foremost in opposing the 
Commonwealth, recognising Charles II. as King of 
England, and sanctioning the support promised him 
by his brother-in-law, the Prince of Orange, who was 
their Stadtholder. France and Spain were less hostile, 
but the former withdrew her ambassador, and even the 
Protestant states of Europe renounced their amity. 

Cromwell’s vigour was never more manifest than 
in his triumph over these obstacles. After putting 
down a mutiny in the army, provoked by the 


y jad 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 219 


reluctance of the Rump Parliament to make way 
for a more representative body, he crossed to Ireland, 
in. August, 1649, with 9,000 men, and stormed 
the chief Royalist strongholds in succession,—taking 
terrible vengeance for the massacre of the English 
settlers by giving no quarter, and putting all the 
garrisons to the sword. During his campaign in 
Ireland the tidings reached him that Charles, having 
accepted the conditions imposed by the Presbyterian 
party, that he should subscribe the Covenant and 
renounce participation in his father’s “tyranny” and 
his mother’s “idolatry,” had landed in Scotland. 
Leaving Ireton to complete his work, Cromwell 
returned to England, where he was received with 
acclamations, and within a month marched into 
Scotland at the head of 15,000 men. Leslie opposed 
him with a larger force, but was utterly routed near 
Dunbar. Edinburgh and the south of Scotland 
thereupon submitted, but Charles fell back upon 
a strong position at Stirling, which resisted the 
assault of the Parliamentary forces. Affecting to 
relinquish the attempt, Cromwell marched into 
Fifeshire, leaving the Prince at liberty to invade 
England. Against the advice of Leslie, Charles 
determined upon this step, crossed with the Scots 
army over the border, and, passing through Lancashire, 
encamped near Worcester. Cromwell was soon in 
hot pursuit, and, attacking the town on both sides, 
defeated the Scots in a desperate engagement, wherein 
they lost 6,000 men. Charles escaped from the 
field, and after a series of romantic adventures found 
his way to France. 


220 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


The collapse of the Royalist cause was followed by 
a settlement of the quarrel between England and 
Scotland. By the skilful management of Vane, 
who directed the policy of the Commons, the terms 
of union of the two kingdoms, arranged by a con- 
vention of English and Scotch commissioners, were 
ratified by an Act which provided for the admission 
of Scotch representatives into the next Parliament. 
A similar scheme was proposed for a union with 
Ireland, and eventually carried into effect. 

Owing to Vane’s exertions, a navy had now been 
raised which, under the command of Robert Blake, 
cleared the sea of several Royalist vessels which, 
sheltered by the protection of Holland, had been 
attacking English merchantmen. ‘The success of the 
Commonwealth speedily changed the tone of the 
Dutch, who now made overtures for an alliance; but 
the English people had never forgotten the Amboyna 
massacre, and were indisposed for friendly relations 
with the only nation which disputed their supremacy 
of the sea. Supported by the majority of the 
Commons, who passed a Navigation Act aimed at 
the ‘carrying trade” which was the mainstay of 
Dutch commerce, Vane fomented the jealousy 
between the two countries, until it broke out into 
war. A series of naval engagements ensued between 
May, 1652, and February, 1653, in which, though the 
Dutch were superior in numbers, and were com- 
manded by their great Admiral, Van Tromp, Blake’s 
fleet won the final prize of victory. 

The refusal of the “Rump” Parliament to fulfil its 
repeated pledges to the army, that it would give place 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 221 


to a new House of Commons representative of the 
nation, provoked Cromwell in. April, 1653, to take 
the arbitrary step of dissolving it by force. It does 
not fall within our scope to trace the course of 
events which resulted in the establishment of a 
Protectorate, and vested in the hands of the great 
Parliamentary general a power not less absolute than 
had been wielded by the King whom he displaced. 
Such features of his government only require notice 
as were affected by its foreign relations. The con- 
summation of the union with Scotland and Ireland 
was realised by the admission of Scotch and Irish 
representatives into the Parliament of 1654. The 
Scottish Highlands, which had hitherto lain outside the 
sphere of settled rule, were reduced into order by the 
firmness of General Monk and his successor, Deane; 
a chain of fortresses securing their future tranquillity. 
Though Presbyterianism was maintained, the General 
Assembly was suppressed, and protection given to 
other forms of Protestant worship. The government 
of Ireland, after Cromwell’s departure in 1650, was 
conducted by Ireton, Ludlow, and Henry Cromwell, 
with a merciless rigour which the dictates of para- 
mount necessity could alone have justified. After 
thousands of Royalists had been put to the sword, 
hundreds more transported as slaves to the West 
Indies, and large numbers of Catholics expatriated, 
with permission to enlist in the service of Spain 
or France, a settlement of the country was made 
upon the lines of the Plantation of Ulster under 
James I. The Catholic landowners who had been un- 
friendly to the Parliamentary cause, without actively 


222 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


opposing it, were mulcted of a third of their estates. 
Those who had taken up arms against it were held to 
have forfeited all rights, but were allotted settlements 
among the native tribes in Connaught. Protestant 
settlers from England and Scotland replaced the 
evicted landowners. By this means, which tem- 
porarily restored order, but sowed the seeds of future 
discord, Ireland was brought into a condition that 
admitted of its union with England, and thirty seats 
in Parliament were assigned to its representatives. 

In his English policy Cromwell was more faithful 
to the principles of toleration than he elsewhere 
showed himself. Although episcopacy had been 
suppressed, the rights of private patrons of livings 
were not disturbed, and ministers of divers opinions 
were appointed tovacant cures, subject to the approval 
of a Board of Triers that they were worthy of their 
sacred calling. The newly-founded sect of ‘ Friends,” 
or Quakers, which other Nonconformist bodies had 
persecuted, was protected under Cromwell’s rule. 
A petition of the Jews for permission to return to 
England, whence they had been banished as a race 
since the fourteenth century, was referred by him to 
a commission of ministers and merchants. They 
reported upon it unfavourably, but it nevertheless 
received his tacit assent, and the Jewish settlements 
which thereupon sprang up in London and else- 
where were regarded as under his sanction. 

His foreign policy was mainly dictated by his 
strong Protestant bias. Notwithstanding the English 
jealousy of Holland, and the animosity caused by 
the fluctuations of a protracted naval contest, Crom- 
well’s endeavours to bring about amity between two 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 223 


Protestant States ultimately succeeded. The political 
advantages of the treaty which was signed in 1654 
were signal. Disheartened by the death of Van 
Tromp, and the failure of his successor, De Ruyter, 
to vanquish the fleet of England, the Dutch agreed 
to acknowledge its supremacy in the Channel, to 
submit to the Navigation Act, and to exclude from 
power the family of Orange, whose connexion with 
the exiled Stuarts made them dangerous to the 
Commonwealth. Friendly treaties were also made 
with Sweden and Denmark. With Spain, on the 
other hand,—which, though now rapidly falling into 
decay, still represented to the Puritans the hostile 
power of Romanism,—Cromwell waged war; despatch- 
ing two expeditions in 1655, under Blake and 
Venables, one to intercept the American treasure- 
fleet and the other to attack St. Domingo. Though 
neither succeeded in its direct object, the second was 
rewarded by the conquest of Jamaica. 

A treaty of alliance with France, then under the 
government of Cardinal Mazarin, which Cromwell 
made in October, 1655, was prompted by political 
necessity, but turned to account in the service of 
Protestantism. In 1656 the massacre, by the Duke 
of Savoy’s orders, of his Protestant subjects in the 
Canton Vaud, excited passionate indignation in 
England, and Cromwell demanded redress. Had 
this been refused, he intended to declare war 
against Savoy, and subsidise the Swiss Protestant 
Cantons to take part in it; but the advice of Mazarin 
induced the Duke to yield. In April, 1657, Blake 
redeemed the failure of his previous expedition by 
an attack on the Spanish treasure-fleet, in the harbour 


224 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


of Santa Cruz, which completely shattered it. The 
culminating triumph of Cromwell’s foreign policy was 
the acquisition of Dunkirk, the importance of which he 
had long discerned. Stipulating for its surrender as 
the condition of his assisting France in her invasion 
of Spanish Flanders, he brought Mazarin to assent. 
In 1657 an English force took part in the campaign, 
and contributed to gain the battle of the Dunes, 
which effected the French conquest, and was followed 
by the allotment of Dunkirk as England’s share of 
the spoil. 

But the wisdom of Cromwell’s rule at home and the 
splendour of his successes abroad failed to reconcile 
the nation to the submission of its free aspirations 
and divers interests to the standard of an inflexible 
will, which recognised the Puritan ideal of life as 
supreme and rested its title to obedience upon the 
power of the sword. The closing years of the 
Protectorate were marked by evidences that, with the 
exception of the military class which he represented, 
all parties were increasingly hostiie to his authority 
and favourably inclined to a restoration of the 
monarchy. Disappointment at the failure of an aim 
which, though marred by personal ambition, there is 
reason to believe was essentially noble, embittered a 
temper naturally irritable and aggravated by infirm 
health. His collisions with Parliament led to repeated 
dissolutions. In August, 1658, on the eve of a new 
election, he was seized with mortal sickness, and died 
on the 3rd of September, after nominating his son 
Richard as his successor. 

The instability of the new Protector’s rule was 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 225 


soon manifested by his impotence to control the dis- 
cord which broke out between Parliament and the 
army. The desire to throw off the military yoke 
and return to the freedom of Parliamentary institutions 
was so generally expressed that the army was forced 
to yield. Dissensions among the officers completed 
its downfall. General Monk, who commanded the 
troops in Scotland, protested against the coercion 
which General Lambert, who commanded the English 
army, sought to put upon the Commons. Having 
summoned a Convention in Edinburgh, and obtained 
a reinforcement of men and supplies, he crossed the 
border, and raising the popular cry of “A free 
Parliament,” marched to London in February, 1660. 
After an attempt of the army under Lambert to 
reassert its power, which resulted in defeat, the new 
Parliament met in April, and commenced to consider 
the terms upon which the exiled King might be 
restored. Their discussion had been forestalled by 
Monk, who was negotiating with Charles. A Declara- 
tion, dated from Breda, appeared in the King’s name, 
promising a general pardon to all but those excepted 
by Parliament, religious toleration, and the satisfaction 
of the demands of the army. It was received with 
enthusiasm, and a vote passed by a large majority 
that the ancient constitution of the realm should be 
re-established. On the 25th of May Charles landed 
in England amid general signs of rejoicing. The 
army alone exhibited silent disapproval as the King 
passed through its ranks on his way to London, 
but proceeded to accept the national decision by 
quietly disbanding itself. 
Q 


226 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


CHAPTER X. 


Miscellaneous foreign influences from the accession of James I. 
to the Restoration. 


/ 


ALTHOUGH the accession of James VI. of Scotland 
to the throne of England failed to bring about a 
political and legislative union of the kingdoms, it 
was attended by a considerable influx of Scotchmen 
into his new dominion, whose naturalisation as English 
subjects inaugurated the amalgamation of the two 
peoples which was eventually accomplished. If, as 
appears probable, the majority of the immigrants 
were Lowlanders of Saxon or Norman blood, they 
introduced no fresh racial element into the national 
organism, and such benefits as they conferred must 
be reckoned due to moral or intellectual qualities. 
Unfortunately, they seem to have mainly belonged to 
the class of all others least likely to be endowed with 
either. Such needy and rapacious courtiers as Hay 
(created Lord Carlisle) and Ramsay (created Lord 
Holderness) are only remembered in our annals for 
having abused the advantages which they enjoyed as 
royal favourites to acquire wealth and dignities at 
the expense of worthier Englishmen. The names of 
other Scottish families, such as Murray, Levingston, 
Fullarton, and Maxwell, occupy a disproportionate 
space in the list of grantees of the Crown lands during 
this reign. But there were Scotchmen of a wholly 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 227 


different type, such as the statesman, Sir George 
Hume (created Lord Dunbar), and George Heriot, 
the goldsmith, by whose residence among them 
Englishmen might justly be honoured. Another step 
towards the gradual union of the two nations which 
followed the accession of James was the appointment 
of a Commission to maintain peace in the border 
districts, which had existed for centuries in a condition 
of chronic warfare. <A signal act of this Commission 
was the wholesale deportation of the Gremes, one 
of the most lawless border clans, to Roscommon in 
Ireland, where a settlement was assigned to them. 
The political effects which during this period were 
due to the influence of theological ideas derived from 
foreign sources have already been considered, but a 
word remains to be said upon their purely theological 
aspects. ‘The ecclesiastical party of which Laud was 
the leader was actuated, as has been seen, by a desire 
to return to the Catholic unity which the Reformation 
had broken, and sought to raise the Anglican Church 
to equality with that of Rome by approaching to an 
assimilation of doctrine and ritual. In carrying out 
this aim they were constrained to ignore the pre- 
dominantly Calvinistic tone of the Articles and 
Homilies, and forbid discussion by the parochial 
clergy of the doctrines characteristic of that system. 
A reaction against those doctrines, particularly that 
of absolute predestination, had long been agitating 
the Reformed Church of Holland, and from the 
name of its most eminent advocate, Hermensen, or 
Arminius, the anti-Calvinistic view was known as 
Arminianism. Its adoption by Laud and his followers 
Qn2 


228 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


deepened the aversion with which they were regarded 
by the Puritan party in England, and, coupled with 
‘‘Popery,” Arminianism was conspicuous among the 
charges brought against them by the Parliamentary 
leaders in the struggle of 1628-9. The tendency of 
the political antagonism between the two great national 
parties which resulted in the Civil War was to in- 
crease their theological antagonism also, and, while 
the bulk of the adherents of the Parliament remained 
‘Calvinists, the supporters of “Church and King” 
‘became identified as Arminians. The Parliamentary 
ranks, however, were divided, as has been shown, by 
other theological dissensions. The Independents and 
Baptists were supported in their protest against the 
intolerance of the Presbyterians (who sought to en- 
force uniformity of Calvinistic worship) by a sect 
known as Erastians, from their adoption of the tenet 
of the German divine Erastus (1524-83), that the 
Church should be governed by the State in all matters 
relating to discipline. This theory, although sub- 
stantially in harmony with the principle upon which 
the Reformation in England was based, was fatal to 
the pretensions of the Presbyterian system, and the 
importance of the issue at stake explains the 
passionate intensity with which the question of 
toleration was debated between the “New Model” 
rand the Parliamentary majority of 1646-8. The 
Erastians formed a distinct group in the Westminster 
Assembly (anfe, p. 210), including among their number 
the great jurist, Selden, and the learned Rabbinical 
scholar, Lightfoot. ‘The occurrence of Erastus as a 
Christian name given to English children at this 
period, perhaps, implies that Erastianism had a fol- 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES, 229 


lowing in the country, although the extent to which 
it prevailed is uncertain. The writings of the German 
theosophist, Jacob Bohme, or Behmen (1575-1624), 
became known in England during the reign of 
Charles I., and his disciples were sufficiently numerous 
under the Commonwealth to be reckoned asa sect. To 
the suggestiveness of his teaching was probably due 
the prevalence of a belief, held in common by several 
sectarian bodies, which sprang into existence during 
this period,—such as the Quakers, the Millennarians, 
and the Muggletonians,—that the human spirit may 
be the chosen recipient of divine illumination, and 
that its utterances under that influence are to be 
regarded as authoritative. It does not diminish the 
probability that Muggleton, at all events, was in- 
debted to Bohme, to find that he violently denounced 
him as an ignorant and fallacious guide. 

A smaller but not insignificant body of dissidents 
adopted anti-Trinitarian tenets, which, after their 
forcible extinction in Italy in the fifth century, were 
revived there at the time of the Reformation, and 
thence spread to Poland, where Leelius Socinus and his 
nephew, Faustus, becamethe founders of a considerable 
sect. From Poland the Socinians were driven, early 
in the seventeenth century, to Holland, where most 
of their writings were published. The chief English 
exponent of these opinions—which ranged between 
those taught by Arius in the fourth century and those 
held by modern Unitarians—was John Biddle. Their 
unpopularity and the severe penalties attaching to 
their propagation (which subjected Biddle to ceaseless 
persecution, and, even under the tolerant rule of 
Cromwell, to close imprisonment) prevented the sect 


230 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


from making much visible progress, but it undoubtedly 
increased, and in the course of the century numbered 
such distinguished adherents as John Milton, Sir 
Isaac Newton, and John Locke. 

The bulk of our debt to foreign sources during 
this, as in the preceding, period was incurred on 
behalf of literature and art. The obligations of our 
greatest dramatist to Italian and French sources for 
the raw material which he transfigured into artistic 
creations have been considered under the head of the 
Elizabethan stage, although the most fruitful years of 
his genius really fall within the reign of James I. The 
same indebtedness may be predicated of the chief 
members of the brilliant dramatic group of which he 
was the centre. Ben Jonson, whose claims to rank 
next to Shakespeare have been generally conceded, 
had a longer career of activity, surviving until 1637. 
The characters and scenery of his first comedy, 
‘Every Man in his Humour,” produced in 1596, 
were originally Italian, but two years later he changed 
them into English. ‘The typical personages of his 
‘Every Man out of his Humour” are for the most 
part characterised by Italian names—Carlo Buffone, 
Puntarvolo, Fungoso, Sordido, &c. ‘*Cynthia’s 
Revels,” his next satire, was directed against the 
euphuism and pedantic formalism of the Court, 
which were mainly imitated from foreign fashions ; 
its purpose being summed up in the opening lines of 
the Palinode :— 


From Spanish shrugs, French faces, smirks, irpes, and all 
affected humours, 
Good Mercury, defend us ! 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES, 231 


The chief characters of ‘‘Volpone, or the Fox,” brought 
out in 1605, are Italian, and the scene is laid in 
Venice. The comedy of ‘‘The Case is Altered,” 
printed in 1609, is also Italian in its personages and 
scenery. The rest of Jonson’s plays deal either with 
classical or English themes, but Italy furnished him 
with a congenial dramatic form in the Masque, 
which he handled with more freedom and variety 
than any of his contemporaries. 

The twin-dramatists, Francis Beaumont and John 
Fletcher, whose careers belong wholly to the Jacobean 
era, were among the first to draw upon the newly- 
opened treasury of Spanish fiction. ‘‘ The Knight of 
the Burning Pestle,” produced in 1611, was a burlesque 
upon the extravagant chivalric romances then in 
vogue, its motive being obviously suggested by the 
“Don Quixote” of Cervantes, which appeared in 1605. 
The plot of their comedy of “The Little French 
Lawyer” was taken from ‘‘ Guzman D’Alfarache,” by 
Aleman, one of the most popular of Spanish novels. 
** Chances,” another comedy, was taken from Cer- 
vantes’s novel of “The Lady Cornelia”; ‘‘ Love’s 
Pilgrimage” from his ‘Two Damsels.” ‘‘ The Maid 
in the Mill” was partly borrowed from a romance of 
Gonzalo de Cespides, entitled ‘ Gerardo,” and partly 
from one of the Italian zovelle of Bandello. ‘The 
Spanish Curate,” “Rule a Wife and have a Wife,” 
and ‘‘A Wife for a Month” may also be referred to 
Spanish sources. ‘Two of the “ Four Plays in One” 
and scenes in the tragi-comedy of ‘‘ Women Pleased ” 
were founded upon novels by Boccaccio, and ‘‘ The 
Custom of the Country” owes part of its plot 


232 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


to a novel by Malespini. A French romance by 
Daudiguier was the original of ‘‘The Lover’s Pro- 
gress.” The exquisite pastoral play of ‘The Faithful 
Shepherdess,” which proceeded from Fletcher’s pen 
alone, belongs to the hybrid class of eclogue-drama, 
originally created by the Italians, and borrowed from 
them by the Spaniards, of which Tasso’s ‘‘ Aminta ” 
and Guarini’s “ Pastor Fido” are the best-known 
examples. : 

Nineteen of the plays of Philip Massinger which 
now remain (little more than half the number that he 
wrote) may be referred to Italian, Spanish-Italian, or 
French sources, either historical or fictitious. Two 
or three of his lost plays, also, may be presumed 
from their titles to have dealt with Italian or Spanish- 
Italian subjects. The “Spanish Gipsy” and “A 
Game at Chess” of Thomas Middleton deal with 
Spanish types of character. The latter was a violent 
attack upon the Court of Spain which gave so much 
offence that its representation was suppressed. 

The characters and scenes in four out of the ten 
plays of John Ford now extant, viz., ‘‘ Annabella and 
Giovanni” (usually known by a coarser title), ‘‘Love’s 
Sacrifice,” ‘‘The Fancies Chaste and Noble,” and 
“The Lady’s Trial,” are Italian, the plots being 
probably taken from zovelle. His ‘‘ Lover’s Melan- 
choly ” contains a graceful paraphrase of the ‘‘ Con- 
tention between a Musician and a Nightingale,” by 
Strada, a contemporary Italian poet. 

Thomas Heywood, another prolific dramatist of 
the day, appears to have been a diligent gleaner in 
the same fields. The main plot of his ‘‘ Captives ” 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 233 


is taken from the “ Mostellaria” of Plautus, its 
underplot from Masuccio’s ‘‘ Novellino.” ‘The under- 
plot of his “Woman Killed with Kindness” has been 
traced to a tale by Illicini of Siena. 

Of their fellow-dramatists, it must suffice to name 
John Webster, as especially indebted to Italian 
fiction. ‘The plot of his masterpiece, ‘‘ The Duchess 
of Malfi,” is founded upon a novel by Bandello. To 
adopt the language of a competent critic in reference 
to this age of our literature, it may ‘‘ without much 
hesitation be affirmed that far the greater number of 
our dramas are founded on Italian novels.”! But 
the extent to which the Stuart dramatists were affected 
by foreign influences does not end here. It requires 
but a superficial acquaintance with the works of 
Jonson, for example, to see how steeped his mind 
was in the spirit of the Renaissance. ‘‘ Volpone” 
alone would suffice to show how familiar was his 
acquaintance with the history, literature, proverbs, 
and colloquial speech, as well as the manners and 
customs, of Italy. Equally unmistakable in the 
works of Beaumont and Fletcher is the evidence of 
their intellectual and moral sympathy with the writers 
to whom they were so largely indebted. This has 
not escaped the critical discernment of Hallam,? who 
notes the ‘elevated sense of honour, friendship, 
fidelity, and love,” which distinguishes “The Two 
Noble Kinsmen,” as being characteristic of Fletcher, 


* “Introduction to the Works of Ford,” p. xxv. (Murray, 
1831.) 

? ‘Introduction to the Literature of Europe,” vol. iii. 
pp. 321-338. 


234 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


‘who had drunk at the fountain of Castilian romance,” 
and the language attributed to Maximus, one of the 
characters in the tragedy of ‘‘ Valentinian,” as framed 
in ‘‘the Spanish style of perverted honour.” In like 
manner, the ‘ studiously-protracted indecency incor- 
porated with” many of Fletcher’s plays, the choice 
of motives and situations designed to exhibit the 
working of lust and cruelty in their grossest forms, 
show but too clearly how completely he had assi- 
milated the tone of his Italian models. Of Webster, 
again, it may be truly said that he “was as deeply 
tainted as his contemporaries with the savage taste 
of the Italian school.” 

Of the allusions to England’s foreign relations to 
be found in the dramatic literature of this period, 
the most noteworthy are those contained in two plays 
of Massinger’s,—‘“‘ Believe as You List,” produced in 
1631, and ‘The Maid of Honour,” printed in 1632. 
In both, the dramatist, under cover of imaginary 
characters, reflects upon the cowardly desertion of 
the Elector-Palatine by Charles and his father, and 
satirises the policy which Weston had recommended 
to his master, of truckling to the power of Spain and 
maintaining a shameful peace, instead of actively 
supporting the Protestant cause in Germany,! 

Turning from dramatic to lyrical poetry, we find 
the delicate bloom and fragrance of the Italian 
Renaissance at its prime reproduced in the early 
poems of John Milton. The “Arcades” and ‘‘Comus” 
are finished examples of the lyrical and pastoral 


‘ See Gardiner’s ‘‘ Personal Government of Charles I.,” 
vol. i. pp. 243-247. 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 235 


drama which Jonson and Fletcher had already 
handled with such success. ‘“ L’Allegro” and “Il 
Penseroso,” although thoroughly national in tone and 
colouring, bespeak the influence under which they 
were composed by their Italian titles, which express 
the opposite moods that the poet intended to depict 
more significantly than any English equivalents.! His 
sonnets, though for the most part dealing with grave 
themes and charged with Puritan symyathies, are 
framed in strict accordance with their Petrarchian 
models. The elegy of ‘‘Lycidas” is perhaps the most 
perfect example in our poetry of the fusion of neo- 
classical culture with Christian sentiment. Refined 
without pedantry, it is animated by a fresh imaginative 
impulse, chastened by devout and tender feeling, and 
unstained by a trace of impurity. Wither was another 
Puritan poet who retained the influence of the same 
culture, and devoted his exquisite skill to the service 
of his highest convictions. Herrick, on the other 
hand, reflects with singular fidelity the strange con- 
trasts which the Renaissance presents of delicacy and 
lewdness. No English lyrics are choicer in senti- 
ment, music, or diction than some of his, while it 
would be difficult to match the grossness of others. 
Of the minor poets of this age, Carew and Lovelace - 
may be named as exhibiting in a less marked degree 
the influence of the same scholarly refinement and 
grace of style. ‘The verse of Crashaw manifests his 
sensibility to a dissimilar influence, also derived from 
Italy,—the half-mystical, half-sensuous devotion which 


' See Morley’s “‘ First Sketch of English Literature,” p. 553. 


236 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


characterised the Catholic revival in the sixteenth 
century. The “Divine Emblems” of Francis Quarles 
imported into our literatitre. that taste for quaint 
moral allegory which had long been popular on the 
Continent. The “Emblems” of Alciati, an Italian 
lawyer, who died in 1550, or the,‘‘ Moral Emblems ” 
of Jacob Cats, a Dutch statesman, contemporary with 
Quarles, was probably his model. Among translators 
of exotic poetry, it 1s enough to name George Chap- 
man, who Englished the “Iliad” and “‘ Odyssey ” of 
Homer in vigorous and picturesque verse; Edward 
Fairfax, whose version of Tasso’s ‘* Gerusalemme 
Liberata” is perhaps the most graceful in our lan- 
guage; and Sir Richard Fanshawe, whose translations 
of the “ Lusiad ” of Camoens, the “ Pastor Fido” of 
Guarini, and Mendoza’s play of “ Querer per solo 
Querer ” were highly esteemed. 

In prose fiction, Shelton’s translation from an 
Italian version of the ‘“ Don Quixote” of Cervantes, 
published in 1612 and 1620, and Sir Thomas 
Urquhart’s translation of the “Gargantua and Panta- 
gruel” of Rabelais, published in 1653, were the most 
noteworthy contributions from foreign sources. ‘The 
half-forgotten French romances of D’Urfé, Made- 
moiselle de Scuderi, and Calprenéde were also 
translated during the period of the Commonwealth, 
and gave rise to a few wholly-forgotten imitations of 
them by English writers. 

Foremost among the literary products of this 
period, regarded only as a monument of English 
scholarship, must be reckoned the Authorised trans- 
lation of the Bible, published in 1611. Whatever 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 237 


exceptions may be taken to it as often inadequately 
rendering the sense of the original text, the dignity, 
simplicity, and rhythmical music of its language 
remain unmatched, and would of themselves suffice 
to preserve it in reverence as a masterpiece of style, 
if the Revised version should eventually supersede it 
in use. 

The greatést English prose writer of this period, 
Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, is’ eminent rather on 
account of the new method of inductive reasoning 
which he introduced into philosophy and science 
than for any speculations or discoveries of his own. 
He was more concerned to demolish the fallacious 
structures of other builders than to make a better 
use of their materials. Even in this respect, how- 
ever, his debt to Aristotle and the schoolmen whom 
he set himself to confute was necessarily large. In 
the ‘‘ Advancement of Learning” and the ‘‘ Novum 
Organum ” he shows considerable acquaintance with 
the labours of his Continental contemporaries in the 
study of natural phenomena, speaking with admiration 
of “‘the wonderful exertions ” of Galileo in inventing 
the telescope and the ‘‘ noble discoveries ” which had 
resulted from its employment, although rejecting the 
Copernican system of astronomy as false and dis- 
puting Galileo’s explanation of the tides as based 
upon that unsound foundation. All Bacon’s short- 
comings and mistakes are condoned by the vastness 
of the scheme shadowed forth in these great works, 
which was no less than to make a complete survey of 
what the human mind had accomplished by means 
of its ancient instruments, and to demonstrate how, 


238 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


by applying right modes of investigation, the yield of 
knowledge might be rendered incomparably richer. 
The ample extent of his attainments is evidenced by 
his frequent citations of ancient and modern authors 
in all departments of learning and the illustrations 
which he adduces from recent observations of Eastern 
and Western travellers. 

Thomas Hobbes, who in youth was one of Bacon’s 
secretaries, held even a lower estimate than his master 
of the metaphysics of Aristotle and the schoolmen, 
and his greatest work, the ‘ Leviathan,” a compre- 
hensive treatise upon the grounds of knowledge and 
faith and the theory of political and ecclesiastical 
government, abounds in caustic references to their 
fallacies. His speculations appear to have been 
mainly original, but he was familiar with the writings 
of two prominent French thinkers of his time,— 
Gassendi, whose materialistic views he shared, and 
Descartes, whose idealism he controverted. He was 
acquainted also with the treatise of the. Spanish 
Jesuit, Suarez, upon moral law, and with the theo- 
logical works of Cardinal Bellarmin, the Italian 
Jesuit, to whose confutation he devotes a section 
of the “Leviathan.” The classical attainments of 
Hobbes were remarkable even in this age of scholars. 
His earliest work was a translation of Thucydides, 
and one of his latest a metrical version of the 
‘‘Tliad” and ‘Odyssey ” of Homer. 

Sir Kenelm Digby, a writer of considerable talent 
and learning, whose mind ranged over a wide field 
of speculation and study, showed in his principal 
work,—a treatise ‘‘Of Bodies and of Man’s Soul,” 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 239 


published in 1645,-—that he had not only mastered 
the systems of Aristotle and other ancient thinkers, 
but was acquainted at first hand with the contribu- 
tions to philosophy and science made by Descartes 
and Galileo. 

Two other great prose writers, John Milton and 
Bishop Jeremy Taylor, only come within the scope of 
this retrospect in virtue of the classical learning 
which pervades their works. In the case of the 
former, it had a marked effect in moulding his style, 
which the latter happily escaped. 

In special provinces of scholarship, which involved 
a thorough acquaintance with foreign as well as 
native sources of information, several English writers 
of this age honourably distinguished themselves, 
notably Richard Knolles, the historian of the Turkish 
empire; Sir Henry Savile, the translator of Tacitus 
and editor of St. Chrysostom ; John Selden, author 
of a treatise upon natural or moral law, as expounded 
by the Hebrew jurists, and other works upon English 
law,—one of which, ‘‘ Mare Clausum,” was an answer 
to the ‘‘ Mare Liberum” of the Dutch jurist, Grotius ; 
Sir Henry Spelman, the antiquary and _ glossarist ; 
Bishop Andrewes, who, as an expert in the history of 
the Church and the writings of the Fathers, entered 
into controversy with the learned Jesuit, Bellarmin ; 
William Chillingworth and Archbishop Usher, who 
carried on the same warfare with like weapons. 

The laborious and recondite erudition of the 
Renaissance had its typical English representatives 
in two prose writers, both men of original power, 
Robert Burton and Sir Thomas Browne. The 


240 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


‘Anatomy of Melancholy,” by which the former is 
remembered, is a treasury of curious learning, upon 
which many succeeding writers have drawn. ‘The 
quaint observation which it displays redeems its 
excess of illustration, which would otherwise he 
tedious. Its sources include both classical and 
medizval authors, to whose works the author had 
access in the libraries of the University of Oxford, 
where he spent his life. The “Religio Medici,” 
“ Hydriotaphia,” and ‘‘ Pseudodoxia Epidemica ” of 
Browne are scarcely less erudite, and their style is 
so much Latinised as to be chargeable with pedantry, 
but they abound in eloquence of a high order. The 
‘“¢ Hydriotaphia,” an essay upon sepulchral urns, is 
based upon the “De Funeribus Romanorum ” of 
Kirchmann, a German scholar. 

The ranks of English scholarship received two 
notable additions from the Continent during the 
reign of James I., in the persons of Isaac Casaubon 
and Francis Junius. Casaubon, the most learned 
classicist of his age, was the son of French Pro- 
testants, who had settled at Geneva, where he was 
born. He spent the last four years of his life in 
England, where he obtained clerical preferment and 
a pension. His son Meric, who accompanied him, 
was also preferred:to rank in the Church, and attained 
some celebrity as a champion of Protestantism. 
Junius, the son of a Dutch Protestant minister, 
was born at Heidelburg, and came over to England 
to be librarian to the Earl of Arundel, a post which 
he filled for more than thirty years. He devoted 
his attention to northern philology, and edited the 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 241 


‘*Paraphrase” of our Saxon poet, Cedmon. An- 
other foreign settler here, Samuel Hartlib, by birth a 
Pole, translated, in 1642, two Latin treatises upon the 
reform of schools, by Komensky, a Moravian pastor, 
that suggested the tract upon “ Education” which 
Milton published in 1644, with an inscription to 
Hartlib. In the following year Hartlib edited a 
treatise upon ‘Flemish Agriculture,” which is 
believed to have largely contributed to the improve- 
ment of that branch of industry in England. The 
name of another Continental scholar, Saumaise, or 
Salmasius, who was employed by Prince Charles in 
1649 to write a ‘‘ Defence” of Charles I., is memor- 
able on account of the answer which he called forth 
from Milton, whose ‘‘ Defence of the People of 
England” is among his most celebrated prose works. 

The fine arts in this country received their greatest 
stimulus during the first half of the seventeenth 
century by the advent of several illustrious Con- 
tinental painters in succession. Paul Van Somer, a 
native of Antwerp, came over a few years after the 
accession of James I., and remained here until his 
death in 1621. A large number of his masterly 
portraits are preserved in our public and private 
galleries. Cornelius Jansen, a native of Amsterdam, 
spent thirty years of his life here, from 1618 to 1648. 
His reputation as a portrait-painter was deservedly 
high, and he appears to have been in constant occupa- 
tion until eclipsed by the fame of Vandyck. Daniel 
Mytens, another Dutch painter in the same walk of 
art, visited England during the reign of James I., and 
obtained the post of Court painter in the next reign. 

R 


242 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Several of his works are in the palace of Hampton 
Court. His fame also declined soon after Vandyck’s 
arrival, when he returned to the Hague. 

Charles I., whose discriminating knowledge and 
judicious patronage of art have redeemed his 
memory as a man from the obloquy he incurred as 
a king, formed an extensive collection of valuable 
pictures, and invited the first contemporary artists 
of all schools to visit his court. Immediately after 
his attainder and execution, his collection was 
confiscated to the use of the State, and publicly 
sold. Many of its treasures were bought by foreign 
collectors, but a considerable number, including 
the cartoons of Raffaelle and Mantegna’s ‘“‘ Triumphs 
of Julius Ceesar,” were retained at the instance of 
Cromwell, and others were subsequently recovered. 
Peter Paul Rubens, the greatest painter of his 
age, visited England upon a diplomatic mission 
a few years after the accession of Charles, who 
knighted him in recognition of his eminence, and 
embraced the opportunity to obtain several examples 
of his art. Many of his works in private collections 
were probably painted during this visit. The most 
illustrious scholar of Rubens, Anthony Vandyck, 
was invited over by the King in 1632; was soon 
afterwards knighted, and installed as chief Court 
painter ; married the daughter of a Scottish peer, 
and remained here until his death in 1641. If his 
genius as a religious artist is better exemplified by the 
pictures which he painted abroad, his consummate 
skill in portraiture can nowhere be seen to greater 
advantage than in this country, which abounds in his 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 243 


masterpieces. From his residence here and the 
inspiration of his works may be dated the real 
beginning of our native school of portraiture. His 
contemporaries, Dobson and Cooper, were his avowed 
imitators, and Highmore, Richardson, and Hudson 
carried on the tradition of his influence into the 
following century. 

Among other Dutch painters of mark who visited 
England during this period may be mentioned 
Cornelius Polenburg, Henry Steenwyck, and Gerard 
Honthorst. Of contemporary Italian painters, several 
received invitations from Charles, but the only one 
of note who accepted was Horatio Gentilleschi, a 
skilful decorator of ceilings. Francis Cleyn, a 
German, who excelled as a designer of grotesques, 
and Jean Petitot, a famous French enamellist, also 
found constant occupation under Charles’s patronage. 
Cleyn was one of the chief artists employed in 
designing patterns for tapestry, a manufactory of 
which was set up in the previous reign at Mortlake. 
John and Martin Droeshout, who appear to have 
been of Dutch extraction, were resident in London, 
and actively employed as engravers. ‘The latter 
was the engraver of the “Chandos” portrait of 
Shakespeare. Wenceslaus Hollar, a native of Prague, 
the most eminent engraver of his age, was brought 
over to England in 1636 by Thomas Howard, Earl 
of Arundel, a connoisseur of art, scarcely less accom- 
plished than the King. Some of Hollar’s best works 
were executed here, where he remained during the 
greater part of forty years. De Voerst and 
Vostermans, two Dutch engravers, and Lombart, a 

2 


244 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Frenchman, were also in request as reproducers of 
the works of Vandyck. 

In architecture, it is sufficient to name Inigo Jones 
as (with one exception) the greatest artist whom this 
country has produced. It is well known that he only 
discovered the special bent of his genius after visit- 
ing Rome and Venice, and the influence of the 
masters of the Renaissance, especially of Palladio, 
may be discerned in his finest designs. In sculpture, 
Gerard Johnson, the son of a native of Amsterdam 
who settled in England, has obtained celebrity as the 
artist of Shakespeare’s bust in Stratford Church. 
Hubert le Sceur, a native of France, was the chief 
foreign artist employed by Charles I. The King’s 
equestrian statue at Charing Cross is his best-known 
work. Nicholas Stone, a native sculptor, in high 
repute, acquired his skill abroad by a careful study of 
the antique and of the Italian masters who had 
caught its inspiration. Of workers in metal, Briot, a 
Frenchman; Van Vianen, a German; and Fanelli, 
an Italian, are recorded as enjoying a large share of 
royal patronage. 

The famous collection of ancient statues, cameos, 
intaglios, inscriptions, and medals formed by the Earl 
of Arundel during this period contributed to mould 
the taste of his contemporaries in all branches of 
exotic culture. Music, as in the preceding age, 
continued to be our one art of native growth. 
Nicholas Lanitre, an Italian by birth, appears to have 
been the only foreign musician of mark who was 
extensively patronised. 

The certainty and pallens of the discoveries in 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 245 


physical science made during this period by Con- 
tinental philosophers, to which Bacon was unhappily 
blind, were not overlooked by all his English con- 
temporaries. The truth of the Copernican system 
of astronomy was advocated by Edward Wright, a 
mathematician and writer upon navigation, and by 
William Gilbert, a physician and author of a remark- 
able Latin treatise upon magnetism. These men, 
however, who flourished in the sixteenth rather than 
the seventeenth century, were far in advance of their 
time, and the system was still comparatively unknown 
to English thinkers in 1640, when John Wilkins 
published his “ Discourse concerning a New Planet,” 
which had for its object the vindication of Galileo, 
who three years before had been imprisoned by the 
Inquisition at Rome for promulgating the heretical 
doctrine that the earth is not the centre of the 
universe. A few years later witnessed a notable 
advance in the progress of science in England. A 
number of thoughtful men, who were saddened by 
the spectacle of political and religious discord during 
the Civil War, turned for consolation to the study of 
Nature, and were drawn into sympathy by the com- 
munity of their pursuits. The origin of the Royal 
Society, which dates from the year 1645, was due to 
the association of these kindred spirits. Wilkins, 
Hartlib, Wallis, and Ward, the mathematicians ; John 
Evelyn, the future author of ‘“‘Sylva”; Christopher 
Wren, the greatest architect of the Restoration ; Robert 
Boyle, the chemist, and Sir William Petty, the econo- 
mist, were among its earliest members. ‘Their range 
of research embraced (to quote the words of one of 


246 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


the associates) all the branches of science which had 
“been much cultivated in Italy, France, Germany, 
and other parts abroad, as well as with us in 
England.” Prominently in the list of subjects figure 
“the Copernican hypothesis” and ‘the Torricellian 
experiment in quicksilver.” The extension of their 
acquaintance with the discoveries of Continental 
savants belongs to the consideration of the succeed- 
ing period. 

The spirit of commercial enterprise which had 
characterised the age of Elizabeth continued to 
animate our countrymen during the seventeenth 
century. The East India Company made rapid strides 
towards the goal of wealth and power. By the exertions 
of a succession of intelligent and courageous agents it 
acquired trading privileges and permanent ‘“ fac- 
tories,” or commercial settlements, in several cities 
within the Indian dominions of the Mogul, in Persia, 
Japan, Java, Siam, Borneo, Sumatra, and the Spice 
Islands. ‘Their fleets, commanded by able captains, 
achieved victories over the Spaniards and Portuguese 
which mastered their opposition ; but the Company 
encountered more formidable competitors in the 
Dutch, whose hostility, at first concealed but after- 
wards avowed, seriously crippled its operations during 
the reigns of James I. and Charles I. In spite of this 
hindrance, which the weakness of these sovereigns 
allowed to harass it with impunity, the prosperity of 
the Company continued to grow, until the naval and 
commercial supremacy of the Dutch was ultimately 
checked, as has been seen, under the stronger rule 
of Cromwell. Other trading communities, notably 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 247 


the Levant or Turkey Company and the Muscovy 
or Russian Company, successfully prosecuted their 
operations during the same period, the one absorbing 
a large share of traffic with the East, the other 
developing the fur trade and the whale fisheries of the 
northern seas. It must be left to imagination to 
calculate the extent to which this diversified activity 
of commercial energy contributed to increase and 
disseminate a knowledge of geography, botany, and 
natural history, and to enlarge the scope of our 
insular ideas concerning the world and its manifold 
varieties of race, language, poetry, creed, and custom. 
Of exotic products which were introduced into 
England during this period, and eventually brought 
into general use, cotton, potatoes, cane-sugar, coffee, 
and tobacco were the most important. 

The enlightening influences due to the extension 
of commerce were further aided by the progress of 
colonisation, which became extremely rapid during 
the first half of the seventeenth century. The 
attempts to form settlements in North America, which 
had previously failed, were renewed under James I., 
who in 1606 granted charters to two Companies, 
organised with the object of planting all the coast 
between the 34th and 45th degrees of north latitude, 
comprehending what are now known as the States of 
Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, 
and Connecticut. . The agressions upon civil liberty 
and the persecution of religious belief by which 
Charles I. and his ministers made England intoler- 
able to a large number of high-minded and God- 


248 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


fearing Puritans consolidated the polity which they 
founded across the Atlantic. .Warmly attached to 
their country, but driven into exile for conscience’ 
sake, they chose to form a new colony, under the pro- 
tection of the national flag, rather than become 
naturalised in a foreign state. ‘The development of a 
distinctively Puritan and Nonconformist community 
in New England was the fruit of this emigration. 
Though severed by distance from their co-religionists 
at home, the colonists preserved unbroken the ties of 
association and sympathy. An instance of the re- 
acting influence which a section of the New England 
Independents were able to exert upon their brethren in 
the old country during the religious conflict that dis- 
tracted the Long Parliament has already been noticed. 

In 1632 the persecution of the English Catholics 
led to their forming another colony on the same 
continent, under the leadership of Lord Baltimore, 
who obtained a grant from the Crown of part of 
Virginia, and gave it, in honour of the Queen, the 
name of Maryland. At various times during the 
same reign, other settlements were made, under the 
authority of royal grants, upon the Bermudas or 
Somers’ Islands, Acadia (subsequently called Nova 
Scotia), Barbadoes, St. Christopher’s, Nevis, Antigua, 
and the Bahamas, and in what are now the States of 
Georgia, Tennessee, and Louisiana. The conquest of 
Jamaica under the Commonwealth completed the 
list of English gains beyond sea. The currents of 
intercommunication which gradually set in between 
the mother-country and her offshoots must have 
nsensibly drifted back to her shores a number of 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES, 249 


exotic elements which now enter into our national 
composition. Among these may be mentioned the 
re-absorption from time to time of returned settlers, 
who had married women of Indian, Spanish, or negro 
blood, with their wives and families ; the importation 
of negro slaves as domestic servants ; the introduction 
of foreign habits and colloquial phrases ; and ac- 
quaintance with the worship, mythology, and tradi- 
tions of many savage races. 

Effects more directly traceable to foreign sources 
may be discerned in the improvements which took 
place in English agriculture during this epoch. The 
service rendered by Samuel Hartlib in making known 
the Flemish system was seconded by two other 
writers, Bligh and Weston, who recommended the 
cultivation of clover and turnips, which had long 
been grown in Flanders, as food for cattle and sheep. 
Early in the reign of Charles I. the draining of 
fen-lands and the reclamation of marshes from the 
sea by embanking were actively promoted by Lord 
Bedford and others, who obtained for that purpose 
the services of an eminent Dutch engineer, Sir 
Cornelius Vermuyden. The scheme of the ‘‘ Bedford 
Level,” by which a large portion of the eastern 
counties was converted from barren swamp _ into 
fertile tillage, is due to his skill. The culture of 
trees, flowers, fruits, and vegetables was stimulated by 
the efforts of John Evelyn, who resided for some 
years on the Continent during the Civil War, and had 
ample resources for the gratification of his favourite 
pursuits. His “French Gardener,” which he speaks 
of inhis ‘‘ Diary” as the “ first and best” treatise on 


250 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


the growth of plants in pots, was published in 1658. 
His collection for a ‘‘winter garden” was made at 
Padua. ‘The taste for landscape-gardening which he 
indulged at Wotton, and was active in diffusing, he 
probably acquired in Holland. The Dutch love of 
tulips, which amounted to a mania, was shared by 
the Parliamentary general, Lambert, who devoted his 
retirement to their culture. Charles I. was interested 
in the culture of new fruits, and gave orders a few 
days before his trial that the seeds of a Spanish 
variety of melon should be planted in his garden 
at Wimbledon. Hartlib, writing in 1650, refers to 
the sowing of cabbages, cauliflowers, turnips, carrots, 
parsnips, and peas as having been first made in 
Surrey within living memory, “‘all which at that time 
were great wonders, we having few or none in England 
but what came from Holland and Flanders.” 

In manufactures, the chief improvement that 
may be noticed was due to the arrival of a Dutch 
dyer, who set up an establishment in 1643, and 
introduced the method of obtaining the fine scarlet 
tint for which Continental cloths were celebrated. 
With the object of encouraging the manufacture of 
silk-stuffs and competing with the French craftsmen, 
James I. circulated instructions for rearing silkworms, 
and directed mulberry-trees to be extensively 
planted. Although checked by the growing importa- 
tion of silken materials from India, this industry ‘so 
far increased that a company of silk-throwsters was in- 
corporated in 1629, and is stated, in an Act passed a 


year after the Restoration, to have employed 40,000 
hands. : ; 


POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 251 


CHAPTER XL 


Foreign influences upon political history from the Restoration 
to the Revolution, 1660 to 1688. 


THE Parliamentary discords and private intrigues 
which brought about the Restoration of the monarchy 
in the person of Charles IT. were the salient symptoms 
of a general reaction against the attempt of Cromwell 
to establish his beneficent dictatorship by the aid of 
military power. The bulk of the English people 
still remained Puritans. They did not suddenly lose 
the love of civil liberty and religious moderation 
which drove them to rebel against Charles I.; and 
their acquiescence in the restoration of his son was 
grounded upon a reasonable expectation that he 
would profit by the lessons of the war and its sequel. 
The immediate result of the Restoration, however, 
was to bring into prominence the ultra-Royalist party, 
which had shed its best blood for the cause of abso- 
lutism, had shared in its ruin, and suffered bitter 
indignities under the yoke of the victors. A transient 
indulgence of retaliation, now that it had gained the 
upper hand, was naturally to be expected. A similar 
reaction in the direction of irreligion and profligacy 
was consequent upon the excess of Puritan fanaticism, 
which had prescribed too rigid a devotional standard 
for all consciences alike, and prohibited innocent 
and vicious forms of entertainment as equally immoral. 


252 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Following the lead of a King whose scepticism of all 
religious belief was only tempered by a secret per- 
suasion that the Romish communion, which he pro- 
fessed to abjure, was really possessed of the truth, 
and who habitually -gave the rein to his passions 
without scruple or shame, the Court and the aris- 
tocratic circle round it became notorious for an 
avowed infidelity and licentiousness which were far 
from reflecting the temper of the nation at large. 
Side by side with these degrading tendencies, healthier 
forces were quietly at work, which gradually vindi- 
cated the triumph of all that the Reformation and 
Puritanism had won for English liberty. 

Charles II., although born on English soil, was the 
son of foreign parents, and inherited the un-English 
traditions of absolute sovereignty that were ingrained 
in the minds of his father and grandfather. Veiled 
under the exterior of an indolent, pleasure-loving 
temperament, he cherished the determination to assert 
his prerogative and indulge his caprices without re- 
gard to the inclination or the welfare of his subjects. 
Though repeatedly baffled, and to all appearance 
ready to abandon any purpose which proved un- 
popular, he steadily pursued these ends. His policy, 
indeed, only differed from his father’s in being irre- 
gularly instead of persistently despotic, and the one 
consideration which curbed his wilfulness was a whole- 
some fear of being driven (as he phrased it) to “set 
out on his travels again.” Unable, as he soon found, 
to impose his will, even upon the Royalist party, 
beyond narrow limits, and checked by the constant 
necessity of applying to Parliament for money, he 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. on 


resorted to the base expedient of appealing to ex- 
ternal aid, and stooped to become the secret minion 
and pensioner of France. 

The sinister influence which this subserviency exer- 
cised upon his domestic and foreign policy, and has 
left the record of his reign the most shameful in our 
history, can only be roughly indicated. We may pass 
lightly over the earlier annals of his rule, when its 
real aims were not detected, and he was.allowed his 
own way. ‘The dissolution of the union between the 
three kingdoms effected under the Commonwealth, the 
re-establishment of episcopal government in Scotland; 
the restoration of Protestant supremacy in Ireland; 
the retention in the royal service of a strong guard of 
cavalry and infantry, which was gradually increased 
to the dimensions of a standing army ; the violation 
of his pledge to show mercy to the regicides and 
republicans, whereby fifteen were brought to the 
scaffold and twenty others disqualified for public 
office,—these and similar indications of his purpose, 
though not wholly unobserved, were submitted to 
without serious opposition. 

In carrying out his policy, Charles was hampered 
by the consciousness that his most trusted ministers, 
with Hyde, now Lord Clarendon, at their head, were 
constitutional statesmen, who would not countenance 
his claim to absolute authority or any direct violation 
of the legal sanctions of liberty. As they represented 
the Protestant convictions of the bulk of the Royalists, 
his purpose of securing the fidelity of English Catholics, 
by granting them the ample toleration he had pro- 
mised, in return for their loyalty during the Civil War 


254 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


and their contributions during his exile, was baffled. 
Still more impracticable was his scheme of a recon- 
ciliation between the Churches of England and Rome, 
in the hope of effecting which he sent a secret embassy 
to the Pope two years after he came to the throne. 
A third project of profiting by the dissensions of 
Protestantism, and playing off Churchmen against 
Nonconformists, to their mutual discomfiture, pro- 
mised greater success, but the time was not yet ripe 
for its execution. He saw no prospect of achieving 
his aim except by help from without. 

The sources from which it could be obtained were 
few. With the United Provinces, which had sheltered 
him in exile and offered to renew their old alliance 
with England, together with the addition of a large 
subsidy, he could enter into no engagement, owing 
to the refusal of Parliament to repeal the Navigation 
Act, which crippled Dutch commerce. With Spain 
he could come to no terms, because she insisted 
upon the cession of the spoils of Cromwell’s victory, 
Jamaica and Dunkirk. He resolved to apply to 
France, then the greatest of European States. Pro- 
fiting by the decrepitude of Spain, by the exhaustion 
of the German empire after the Thirty Years’ War 
and its continual struggle with the Turks, and by the 
comparative weakness of Holland and Sweden, it had 
grown under Richelieu and Mazarin into a solid, 
wealthy, and powerful government. Its army, since 
the accession of Louis XIV., had been increased to 
nearly half a million, and the strength of its navy 
now rivalled that of England. The ambition and 
cupidity of Louis himself, aided by the skill of his 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 255 


statesmen and generals, had already deprived Spain 
of her old pre-eminence in Europe. ‘The ruin of her 
empire, which he desired to accomplish, could only 
be obtained by depriving her of all allies, and Eng- 
land was the solitary European power whose neutrality 
had not been secured. Charles had, therefore, chosen 
a favourable moment for his application, which was 
readily conceded upon the basis of an understanding 
that England would tacitly acquiesce in the French 
schemes. The informal alliance of the two countries 
was sealed by the double marriage of Louis’s brother, 
the Duke of Orleans, with Henrietta, the sister of 
Charles, and that of Charles himself with Catherine, 
daughter of the King of Portugal, a State whose 
recent revolt from Spain had deeply wounded her 
pride and crippled her resources. The acquisition 
with his bride of a large dowry in money and of two 
important stations,—Tangier in Africa and Bombay 
in India,—was a tangible gain that veiled from the 
English people the real motive of the marriage. 

The Parliamentary ‘‘ Convention,” by whose vote 
Charles had been restored, which had been mainly 
composed of Presbyterians, was succeeded by a 
newly-elected Parliament wherein Royalists and 
Episcopalians largely preponderated. Its temper was 
soon shown by a resolution that the “‘ League and 
Covenant” should be publicly burned, and its repeal 
of the Act which deprived the Bishops of their seats 
in the Upper House. At the instance of Clarendon, 
whose theory of constitutional government was to 
preserve a balance between the prerogatives of the 
Crown, the power of the Church, and the liberties 


256 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


of Parliament, an Act was then passed which ex- 
cluded from municipal office any one who refused 
to communicate according to the Anglican rite, to 
renounce the League and Covenant, and to affirm the 
unlawfulness of taking up arms against the King. In 
1662, a Bill for uniformity in the Church was intro- 
duced, which extended similar tests to the clergy, 
disallowed orders not conferred by episcopal hands, 
and required consent to the entire contents of the 
Prayer-book and its exclusive use. The Bill was 
carried and received the assent of Charles, who 
hoped by subjecting the Dissenters to persecution 
to convince them of the necessity of tolerating the 
Catholics. On St. Bartholomew’s Day (August 24), 
nearly 2,000 Nonconformist clergymen, including 
divines of such high eminence as Baxter and Howe, 
were ejected from their benefices. ‘The immediate 
effect of this measure was to organise the forces of 
Dissent against the Government. Even Clarendon 
became apprehensive of an explosion of popular 
feeling, and concurred with Charles that it was ad- 
visable to obtain foreign aid. He accordingly as- 
sented to a disastrous bargain with Louis for the 
sale of Dunkirk, a station of vital importance to 
England, as securing her immunity from privateers 
in the Channel, and the loss of which was severely 
felt during the naval wars of the next century. 

But the divergent aims of Charles and his chan- 
cellor soon led to a rupture between them, and a 
new instrument to carry out the royal scheme of 
masking despotism under colour of toleration was 
found in Ashley Cooper, Lord Ashley. Although 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 2E7 


destitute of religious convictions, he attached himself 
to the Presbyterians from a persuasion that England 
could only maintain her liberties against the Crown 
and assert her influence in Europe by the principle 
which they represented. With this view he had 
opposed Clarendon’s policy of persecution, and ap- 
proved the King’s proposals of reversing it. A pro- 
clamation issued in December, 1662, which promised 
to exempt from the penalties of the Test Act and 
the Act of Uniformity all Nonconformists whose 
tender consciences impelled them to “ perform their 
devotions in their own way,” was followed by a 
Bill to give the promise effect. But the measure 
was resisted by the Church party, and failed to win 
the approval of the bulk of the Nonconformists, who 
scrupled to accept an enfranchisement shared by 
their Catholic enemies. At the instance of Clarendon, 
Parliament threw out the Bill, pressed the King to 
withdraw his first proclamation, and issue another 
for the banishment of Catholic priests; and proceeded 
to pass the “Conventicle Act,” which subjected to fine 
and imprisonment all persons above five in number 
who assembled for divine worship without using the 
Book of Common Prayer. These penalties inflicted 
cruel suffering upon the evicted clergy and their 
Nonconformist congregations throughout England. 
The existence of domestic discord was fatal to the- 
maintenance of a united front against foreign foes. 
The old jealousy of Holland, after temporarily sub- 
siding, had been revived by England’s acquisition 
of Bombay and the formation of a West Indian 
Company, which interfered with Dutch traffic in 
S 


258 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


African gold. Clarendon and the Church party, 
sensible that their repressive policy could not be 
maintained during a war, strove to control the irri- 
tation which the injuries inflicted upon English com- 
merce by Dutch merchants continually provoked. 
Ashley and the Presbyterians, on the other hand, 
saw in the prospect of war and the taxation it would 
entail a chance of loosening Clarendon’s hold upon 
public support. Coalescing with the Catholic party, 
they biassed the King and inflamed popular resent- 
ment for that purpose. Charles, though averse to 
applying to Parliament for money, was favourable to 
a policy which tended to unsettle the republican 
oligarchy in Holland, and restore his nephew, William 
of Orange, to that hereditary authority over its councils 
‘from which his family had been displaced. In the 
course of 1664, Parliament was thus persuaded to 
reject the advice of Clarendon, and declare war with 
the Dutch. 

The first naval engagement between the two fleets 
‘off Lowestoft in 1665 ended in an English victory, 
but the struggle was prolonged with alternating 
success and defeat. Other causes intervened to 
aggravate the crisis. A terrible incursion of the 
plague decimated London during six months of 
1665, and was followed in the next year by a 
calamitous fire, which destroyed the greater part 
of the city. Fresh political complications threatened 
to increase the cost of the war, which was already 
severely felt. Louis, whose scheme of crushing 
Spain by the conquest of her Flemish possessions 
was ripe for execution, was hampered by the proximity 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 259 


of the conflict, and vainly offered at the outset to 
mediate between the combatants. When, after the 
engagement at Lowestoft, both sides applied to him 
for aid, he avowed himself constrained by ancient 
treaty-obligations to give it to the Dutch. His 
machinations defeated the attempt of Sir William 
Temple, the English minister in the Netherlands, to 
form a Spanish alliance. The Protestant States of 
Sweden and Brandenburg were alienated by similar 
intrigues, and the negotiations of French emissaries 
with the English republicans, the Scotch Presbyterians, 
and the Irish Catholics, raised a counter-agitation. 
Englishmen were easily roused to a revival of their 
old antagonism to France, and Parliament did not 
shrink from the prospect of war. But evidences of 
the internal dissensions which Clarendon’s policy had 
promoted were soon- manifest. The traditional 
sympathy of the Puritans with their co-religionists 
in Holland was: not yet extinct, and the Republican 
Government, when alarmed by the endeavour of 
Charles to excite the Orange faction against it, 
threatened to land troops in England and stir up 
a Nonconformist revolt. The signs of disaffection 
only provoked the intolerance of the Church party 
to severer repression. By the ‘‘Five-Mile Act,” passed 
in 1665, every ejected clergyman who refused to 
abjure the lawfulness of taking up arms against the 
Crown or of making “any alteration of government 
in Church or State,” was prohibited from coming 
within five miles of the place where he had been 
a minister: the effect being to deprive the Noncon- 
formist body of all religious instruction. 
Se 


260 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


The exhausting drain of taxation which the war 
with Holland occasioned made it so difficult to obtain 
fresh supplies that the losses of the navy could not 
be repaired. Loyal as the Parliament was, it showed 
its mistrust of the King by appointing a Commission 
to inquire into his expenditure, and opposed his 
inclination to France by a plain avowal of hostility. 
Meanwhile, he was negotiating for peace through 
French mediation, and in May, 1667, a Congress met 
at Breda to consider the terms. The Dutch were 
also anxious for peace, but, aware of the crippled 
condition of the English navy, resolved to strike 
a blow which should paralyse opposition. In June, 
their fleet, under De Witt, suddenly appeared at the 
Nore, forced the barrier of the Medway, and sailed up 
the Thames to Gravesend, burning three men-of-war 
which lay at anchor, and returned to sail along the 
coast in triumph. The attack was so unexpected 
that neither the vessels nor the forts which protected 
the river were properly manned, and, although the 
Admiralty was quickly roused from its inaction, 
England’s degradation was complete. While the most 
loyal servants of the Crown reflected with shame upon 
the dignity with which Cromwell had maintained the 
national honour, Charles only studied how to turn 
events to his own advantage. By the terms of peace 
concluded with Holland, each side retained its 
acquisitions. Parliament visited its indignation upon 
Clarendon, and in August, 1667, Charles seized the 
opportunity to dismiss him from office and banish 
him to France. 

A coalition composed of three or four Presby- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 261 


terians, headed by Ashley, and two unavowed 
Catholics, Clifford and Arlington, constituted the new 
ministry, which was known as the Cabal, from the 
initial letters of their names. However disposed to 
further the King’s will, they were constrained at the 
outset to abandon the French alliance. Louis took 
immediate advantage of the peace between England 
and Holland to execute his designs upon the Spanish 
Netherlands. Within three months Flanders and 
Franche Comté were invaded and occupied by a 
large army. ‘The capture of the Flemish coast-towns 
and the appeal of the Dutch for aid impelled England 
to take active measures. Diplomatic overtures of 
alliance with Spain, France, and Holland separately 
were at first tried, but proved unavailing. In 1668, 
however, Sir William Temple concluded a triple 
alliance between England, Holland, and Sweden, 
which constrained Louis to make peace with Spain 
upon terms which he had himself proposed, without 
intending to fulfil them. By the treaty of Aix-la 
Chapelle he retained possession of southern Flanders 
and a line of fortifications which dominated the 
remainder of Spanish territory, but was foiled in a 
scheme of conquest which would have made him 
master of Europe. The principle involved in the 
Triple Alliance recognised the maintenance of that 
“balance of power” which has ever since been held 
essential to the foreign policy of England. 

The new ministers of Charles substantially agreed 
with his plan of toleration, and among their first 
measures were the release of the imprisoned Non- 
conformists, the re-opening of conventicles, and 


262 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


suspension of the Uniformity Act ; but beyond this 
point they would not venture. A general dread of 
Catholicism had been aroused by the signs of French 
ageressiveness, which made it dangerous to weaken 
any Protestant safeguards. In place of extending 
toleration to Catholics, they proposed a comprehen- 
sive union of English Protestants. It was approved 
by several moderate divines, but the King, to whose 
scheme it was fatal, rejoiced when the Houses re- 
jected it. Hoping to obtain more support from a 
new House of Commons, the ministers urged the 
King to dissolve, but, apprehensive of being forced 
to abandon his reliance upon France and the Catho- 
lics for the recovery of his prerogative, he refused. 
An event which he had long foreseen, the conversion 
to the Romish Church of his brother and presumptive 
heir, James, Duke of York, impelled him to more 
decisive steps. ‘Though as yet concealed, the Duke’s 
conversion must soon be discovered, and occasion 
a demand from Churchmen and Nonconformists alike 
for his exclusion from the succession to the throne. 
To avoid a contest which might be ruinous to the 
dynasty, it seemed safer to precipitate the crisis. 
Charles threw himself accordingly into the arms of 
Louis, by offering to accept whatever terms he 
demanded for an offensive and defensive alliance, 
with the object of re-establishing Catholicism in 
England. Clifford and Arlington, the two Catholic 
members of the Cabal, were admitted into the secret 
of this negotiation in January, 1669. At a conference 
with them, in company with the Duke, and two other 
Catholic peers, Charles avowed his conversion to their 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 263. 


faith, and requested their advice how best to accom- 
plish the end he desired. That Louis would insist 
upon England’s withdrawing from the Triple Alliance 
was well known to the ministers who had been parties 
-to it, and, in consenting to apply for his aid, they 
were accomplices in a perfidy which they concealed 
from their colleagues. After lengthy negotiations, 
a treaty was secretly contracted at Dover in May, 
1670, between Charles and his sister, the Duchess 
of Orleans, who represented the French King. Charles 
thereby undertook to declare his conversion, to join 
Louis in attacking Holland by sea and land, and, 
should the King of Spain die without a son, to sup- 
port the claim of France to the Spanish Netherlands. 
Louis, on his part, pledged himself to grant Charles 
a yearly subsidy of 41,000,000 sterling, to assist him 
with troops and money in case the announcement 
of his conversion led to a revolt, and if France 
succeeded in the conquest of Flanders, to compensate 
England by allowing it to seize Spanish America. To 
ensure the fidelity of Charles to this alliance, Louis 
despatched in the train of the Duchess an attractive 
and licentious woman, Louise de Querouaille, as his 
agent. She quickly acquired ascendancy over the 
other mistresses of Charles, was raised to the rank 
of Duchess of Portsmouth, and retained to the last 
a fascination over his will which she employed in the 
interest of her own country. 

Ashley and the Presbyterian ministers were deluded 
by the preparation of a mock treaty, which merely 
provided that England should join France in a war 
with Holland. This virtual rupture of the Triple 


264 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Alliance was cloaked by the pretext that it did not 
violate the security of the Spanish Netherlands, to 
which alone the allies were pledged. A promise 
added by Charles that he would grant toleration to 
all but Catholics further recommended the treaty to 
Ashley’s acceptance. Parliament had still to be 
cajoled by the demand of a subsidy for carrying out 
the provisions of the Triple Alliance. As soon as it 
was granted by the Commons, the session was 
adjourned. 

In March, 1672, an attack upon a Dutch convoy 
by an English ship was followed by a declaration of 
war. The necessary supplies were obtained by 
arbitrarily suspending the payment of public loans. 
In fulfilment of his pledge, Charles at the same time 
published a Declaration of Indulgence, dispensing with 
the penal laws against Nonconformists, and accord- 
ing liberty of public worship to all but Catholics, 
who were restricted to private rites. The effect was 
to re-open scores of chapels whose ministers had 
been banished and set free hundreds of imprisoned 
Quakers and other dissidents. But the price paid 
for this freedom, which involved the ruin of England’s 
oldest Protestant ally, was too costly to call forth the 
Nonconformists’ gratitude. 

The French campaign opened with the conquest 
and occupation of three of the United Provinces. 
The Dutch fleet, under De Ruyter, held its own 
against the English, under the Duke of York, in an 
engagement off the Suffolk coast. But the oligarchy 
which had ruled the Republic since the deposition of 
the house of Orange collapsed with the destruction 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 265 


of its old safeguard, the French alliance, and 
John de Witt, its leader, was sacrificed to popular 
indignation. ‘The national spirit, which was evoked 
to resist the insulting demands of Louis, found a 
fit representative in William, the young Prince of 
Orange, who was recalled to his hereditary Stadt- 
holdership. In spite of infirm health, an ungenial 
disposition, and cold manners, his conspicuous 
sagacity and daring won the confidence of his 
countrymen, which was soon justified by his conduct 
of the war. From the spring of 1673 the current of 
French conquest was reversed, and though pitted 
against veteran .-nerals and often baffled of victory, 
he succeeded in recovering one by one the provinces 
which France had seized. 

The contest aroused the warm sympathy of 
Protestant Englishmen, and Charles, who had sig- 
nalised his triumph by showering honours upon his 
ministers, found himself undeceived when the ex- 
penses of the war obliged him in 1673 to resort to 
Parliament for supplies. His policy excited a pre- 
vailing fear of the existence of a Catholic conspiracy. 
Catholic officers had been appointed to commands in 
the army sent against the Dutch ; the conversion of the 
Duke of York, who held the office of High Admiral, 
was more than suspected; and the avowed Catholicism 
of Lady Castlemaine, one of the king’s favourite 
mistresses, threw doubts upon his own belief. 
The mistrust of the Commons was shown by their 
refusal to grant the subsidy asked for until the 
Declaration of Indulgence had been withdrawn. This 
resistance was supported by what was now known as 


266 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


the Country party, headed by Lords Russell and 
Cavendish, which, while favourable to the toleration. 
of the Nonconformists, subordinated it to the 
obligation of preserving constitutional liberty. After 
exhausting his influence to escape the necessity, 
Charles consented to withdraw the Declaration. 
The Houses guarded against the recurrence of danger 
by passing a new Test Act, which imposed the oaths 
of allegiance and supremacy upon all military and 
civil officers, and prescribed that they should repudiate . 
the mass, and take the sacrament according to 
Anglican rites. To this Act, which shattered his 
schemes at a blow, Charles was forced to assent, under 
a threat that the subsidy would be otherwise with- 
held. 

The imposition of the tests required by the Act 
confirmed the worst fears of its authors. The Duke 
of York avowed himself a convert to the Church of 
Rome, and resigned the High Admiralship. His 
resignation was followed by that of Clifford, the Lord 
Treasurer, and hundreds of military and civil officers. 
The national confidence in the King, whose indolence 
and gaiety disarmed suspicion of his craft and perfidy, 
was thenceforth gone. Now that concealment was 
useless, Arlington revealed to Ashley (recently created 
Earl of Shaftesbury) the provisions of the treaty of 
Dover, and the most penetrating of living statesmen 
found that he had been a dupe and puppet in his 
master’s hands. ‘The discovery determined him to 
change his policy, to side with the feeling of the 
Commons, and put a stop to the war. Charles, 
however, was still resolved to carry it on, although 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 267 


conscious of the isolated position in which he stood. 
The unsuccessful conduct of the campaign would 
alone have justified its unpopularity. The general- 
ship of William had recovered for the Dutch their 
lost provinces, and his no less skilful diplomacy 
brought about an Austrian alliance against France. 
The English fleet had been long held at bay by the 
Dutch, and its forced retreat from the Channel after 
a drawn battle rendered it impossible for the army to 
effect the intended invasion of Holland. But Charles 
would not yield without an effort. Provoked by 
Shaftesbury’s coalition with the Country party, and 
his instigation of an address protesting against the 
marriage of the Duke of York with a Catholic 
princess (Mary of Modena), Charles suddenly pro- 
rogued Parliament and dismissed the Chancellor 
from office. 

After fomenting public alarm by reports of a Popish 
insurrection in London, the landing of a French army 
in Ireland, and a conspiracy to compass his own 
assassination, Shaftesbury concerted with the Country 
party a petition to the King, which was presented on 
the reassembling of the Houses, for the dismissal of 
“ Popishly-affected ” ministers. Bills were brought in 
to forbid Catholics from attending Court, and to 
exclude from the succession any prince of the blood 
who should marry a Catholic. Though Parliament 
threw out the “Protestant Securities ” Bull, as this 
last measure was called, public feeling in favour of it 
was too strong to be disregarded. ‘Tidings that the 
Dutch had secured a new ally in Spain, a contest with 
whom would be ruinous to English commerce, and a 


268 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


threat by the Commons that supplies would be with- 
held, again forced Charles to yield. He consented 
to make peace with Holland and to dismiss Arlington 
and Buckingham, the ministers most obnoxious to the 
House. But his purpose was unchanged, and he had 
already devised ascheme of outwitting his opponents. 
He chose for his new minister Sir Thomas Osborne 
(whom he created Earl of Danby), a member of the 
old Cavalier party, who adhered to Clarendon’s policy 
of preserving a balance between the Crown, the 
Church, and Parliament. The King’s desire to secure 
the succession of James by devising due precautions 
to tranquillise Protestant fears commended itself to 
Danby’s approval. The Duke’s eldest daughter, 
Mary, who was presumptive heir to the throne, was 
accordingly confirmed as a Protestant. William of 
Orange came next in succession, and his popularity 
pointed him out as the most eligible husband for the 
Princess. Negotiations for their marriage were set on 
foot at the close of 1674. ‘The Church was reassured 
by the enforcement of the Conventicle Act and the 
exclusion of Catholics from Court. When Parliament 
reassembled in 1675, it was conciliated by a pledge 
that the Test Act should be maintained. So bent, 
however, were the Commons upon opposing the 
King’s inclination towards France, that Danby only 
succeeded by bribery in defeating a motion for the 
recall of the English troops in the service of Louis. 
At Shaftesbury’s instance the House retained control 
of the supplies, which crippled the King’s action. In 
despair, Charles turned to Louis for pecuniary aid, 
which would relieve him from dependence on Par- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 269 


liament. He was forced to take Danby into con- 
fidence upon this matter. A treaty had been pre- 
pared, whereby, in consideration of a yearly pension 
payable by Louis, the two monarchs undertook to 
assist each other in case of internal rebellion and 
to form alliances with no other States. As Danby 
pleaded for delay before assenting to such a compact, 
Charles settled the question by signing it alone. 
When, after a protracted recess, Parliament re- 
assembled in February, 1677, an attempt made by 
Shaftesbury to force on its dissolution by reviving 
an obsolete statute was defeated by Danby, who 
prevailed upon the Lords to commit him to the 
Tower. Buta Bill brought in to appease the Church 
on the subject of the Protestant succession was 
rejected by the Commons, and a lavish use of bribery 
was requisite to obtain a subsidy unchecked by any 
control over its expenditure. The nation was 
clamorous for war with France, and both Houses 
petitioned the King to join the great European 
Alliance which William had organised. Charles 
evaded the difficulty by demanding supplies, and when 
refused them prorogued Parliament for seven months 
longer, during which the treasury was replenished 
by a French subsidy. To quiet dissatisfaction, he 
revived the proposal of a marriage between Mary and 
William of Orange, which had not yet been seriously 
entertained by the parties concerned. ‘The Prince 
was now anxious to agree to it, and came over to 
England in September, 1677, when the nuptials 
were celebrated. The prospect of a Protestant 
succession to James heartily gratified the country, 


270 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


but the resentment which Louis showed at the match 
provoked a fresh outburst of warlike enthusiasm. 
The overtures of peace made by Charles were 
rejected by France, and the English ambassador 
was withdrawn from Paris. When Parliament met 
in 1678 it responded to the King’s simulated hostility 
by a genuine utterance, and voted large supplies to 
support the army raised for the campaign. But the 
only intention of Charles was to turn these prepara- 
tions to his own account. He deferred an actual 
declaration of war, and, while keeping up communi- 
cations with the Allies, secretly agreed with Louis 
that, in consideration of a three years’ pension, he 
would use his influence with them to accept the 
French terms of peace. Although an English force 
of 3,000 men actually landed at Ostend, he offered 
to recall it upon the promise of a further pension. 
Meantime, Louis, who shared with the Country party 
a common distrust of Charles, offered them pecu- 
niary aid to thwart his plans, an offer which, to 
the dishonour of their righteous cause, they rashly 
accepted. Owing to these counter-intrigues, the 
stability of the Great Alliance was so much shaken 
by England’s bad faith that Louis saw his oppor- 
tunity of making better terms. One by one the 
Allies agreed to his demands, and by the peace of 
Nimeguen, signed in 1678, Louis obtained from Spain 
the cession of Franche Comté and twelve fortresses 
in Flanders, and made a favourable exchange of 
territory with the Empire. Holland, thanks to the 
vigorous conduct of the war by William of Orange, 
regained its losses, and acquired fresh’ commercial 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES, 271 


advantages, but the substantial effect of the Peace 
was to vest the supremacy of Europe in the hands 
of France. While England reaped nothing but a 
memory of shame, Charles found himself possessed 
of an army of 20,000 men and a French subsidy 
of nearly 1,000,000 sterling. 

The hopes of the conversion of the three kingdoms 
to the Romish faith, which the Catholics had built 
upon the French alliance and the King’s pledges of 
toleration, although now blighted, had inspired them 
with so much confidence as to excite a Protestant 
panic, which was slow to subside. An adventurer, 
named Titus Oates, availed himself of it to gain 
notoriety by producing garbled extracts from private 
letters before a London magistrate upon oath, as 
evidence of a Popish plot to assassinate Charles 
and set his brother on the throne. Confirmatory 
evidence was found in the correspondence of a 
Jesuit, named Coleman, which had been seized, 
and disclosed an intrigue between Louis and 
several members of Parliament to defeat Danby’s 
measures of repression. The revelation was turned to 
account by Shaftesbury, now released from prison, 
who headed the popular movement. The assassination 
at this juncture of the magistrate before whom Oates 
had made his affidavit added fuel to the flame. 
Parliament appointed a committee of inquiry, whose 
report impeached five Catholic peers in the plot. 
They, with 2,000 suspected persons, were imprisoned, 
all Catholics were ordered to leave London, and a Bill 
to exclude them from a seat in Parliament passed 
both Houses. Fresh falsehoods, concocted by other 


272 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


impostors and improved upon by Oates, implicated 
the Queen in the plot to assassinate the King, and — 
excited apprehensions of the landing of a Catholic 
army and a Protestant massacre. The impeachment 
of the five peers under arrest was directed by 
Parliament. Coleman and some of his alleged 
accomplices were tried and executed. The discovery 
of a real plot dispelled any doubt from the minds of 
the Protestant majority that they had solid grounds 
for suspicion. In revenge for Danby’s hostility 
Louis brought about his fall. After negotiating with 
Shaftesbury and the leaders of the Country party, 
and securing by bribery a larger number of votes than 
Danby had forestalled, Louis authorised Montagu, 
late English ambassador at Paris, who had returned 
home after a dispute with Danby, to. lay before 
Parliament a despatch which the latter had signed, 
applying for the subsidy due to Charles for his good 
offices with the Allies. Astounded by this confirma- 
tion of its fears that the national honour had been 
sacrificed, the House immediately impeached Danby 
for high treason, but Charles, dreading the further 
revelations which a trial would involve, dissolved 
Parliament in January, 1679. 

Though wholesale bribery was resorted to during 
its election, the new House of Commons largely 
reflected the genuine feeling of the country. The 
King attempted conciliation; but it was bent upon 
Danby’s punishment, and a bill of attainder having 
passed the Lords, he was committed to the Tower. 
The ministry which succeeded to power included 
Shaftesbury, the leaders of the Country party, and 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 273 


Sir William Temple, who was recalled from the 
Hague. It effected some valuable ‘domestic reforms, 
but the question of the Duke of York’s exclusion 
from the succession, upon which the Lower House, 
backed by the city of London, continued to insist, 
divided the ministerial councils, and induced Charles 
to resort to his favourite tactics of delay by again 
dissolving Parliament. Diverging from the leaders of 
the Country party, who desired to transfer the succes- 
sion from the Duke of York to his daughter and her 
husband, Shaftesbury selected as a preferable cand1- 
date the young Duke of Monmouth, eldest of the 
King’s natural children, but commonly believed to 
have been born in wedlock. -Though of weak 
character and loose life, the youth was popular on 
account of his personal attractions and reputed 
courage. After having quelled a formidable revolu- 
tion of the Covenanters in Scotland, brought about 
by the persecution of Lauderdale and Archbishop 
Sharp (whom they murdered in revenge), he had 
been appointed Captain-general of the forces. These 
qualifications commended him as a serviceable 
instrument for Shaftesbury’s designs, but the course 
of events frustrated their immediate execution. The 
sudden illness of the King called the Duke of York 
back to England, and a dispute arose between him 
and his nephew, which Charles, upon recovering, 
could only settle by sending both into exile. 
Shaftesbury attempted to force a change of policy, 
by fanning the Protestant alarm, prosecuting the 
victims of the Popish plot, and terrorising the 
Catholics by espionage; but Charles, observing 
a 


274 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


the divisions in the Council which weakened its 
strength, took occasion to dismiss him from the 
Presidency in October, 1679. 

To avoid the necessity of summoning Parienenk 
the King secretly negotiated with Louis for a fresh 
subsidy; but his services to France not being re- 
quired at the moment, such distasteful conditions 
were attached to the bargain that he could not close 
it. The effects of the recent panic were shown in 
the return of a more Protestant House of Commons 
than the last, but Charles delayed the session for 
a year longer. Monmouth returned to England, 
and Shaftesbury conducted an active agitation in 
support of his claim to the succession. Petitions 
for the assembling of Parliament were obtained 
from every county, discoveries were announced of 
new Catholic conspiracies, and _ street-processions 
organised to burn the Pope in effigy. But this 
violence provoked a reaction, which Charles was 
quick to discern. Public credulity was becoming 
exhausted, and, in spite of the perjuries of Oates 
and his fellow-informers, several Catholic prisoners 
were acquitted. The adherents of the Crown pre- 
sented counter-addresses, declaring their abhorrence 
of the designs of its enemies. ‘The growth of the 
two political factions which thenceforth divided the 
country sprang out of this agitation; the names of 
Whig and Tory originating in terms of obloquy ex- 
changed between the loyalists and the Country party. 
Charles was encouraged to recall his brother to 
Court, and accept the resignation of Lord Russell 
and other members of the Council who supported 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 275 


Shaftesbury. The Earl, on his part, showed no 
irresolution. By his advice, Monmouth made a 
progress through England in the character of a 
Protestant champion, and won much popularity. 
When Parliament met in October, 1680, an Exclu- 
sion Bill passed the Lower House without opposition, 
and it was only by the King’s personal solicitation 
that the Lords rejected it in favour of a fresh project 
of Protestant securities. 

But at this juncture Charles was unexpectedly 
aided by the Prince of Orange, who felt that without 
the co-operation of England the European Alliance 
would be powerless against France. Such co-opera- 
tion Charles now avowed his willingness to lend ; 
and actually protested against the fresh encroach- 
ments of Louis in Germany, besides negotiating for 
the concert of Spain and Brandenburg. Shaftesbury’s 
project of excluding the Duke of York’s children, as 
well as himself, from the succession, was fatal to the 
hope which William entertained of one day governing 
England in right of Mary and wielding its power 
against France. The only course open to him, there- 
fore, was to espouse the cause of his father-in-law. 
His chief adherent and spokesman in the House of 
Lords, Savile, Lord Halifax, accordingly came forward 
with a new Bill of Securities. Shaftesbury, however, 
persuaded the Commons to reject it, and proceeded 
to inflame the Protestant frenzy, which found another 
victim in Lord Stafford, one of the arrested Catholic 
peers, who was brought to trial and executed. The 
withholding of supplies at last so incensed Charles 
that he once more dissolved Parliament. 

Tae 


276 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


The new House, which met in March, 1681, proved 
as hostile to his policy as its predecessors had been, 
and the temper of both parties became dangerously 
excited. Monmouth’s progress was resumed, and 
addresses of welcome greeted him at every stage. 
Riots in London were ominous of revolution, and the 
King was thrown back upon his old resource of 
appealing to Louis for help. Faithless to his pledges 
to William, he promised to withdraw from the 
European Alliance and remain at peace with France 
in consideration of a yearly subsidy. The terms of 
this bargain enabled him to take a resolute tone, 
which was strengthened by the disunion and violence 
of his opponents. The ranks of the Country party 
were disorganised by a futile attempt of Shaftesbury 
to obtain Monmouth’s recognition as his father’s 
successor and by an impracticable Bill of Limitation 
introduced by Halifax in the interest of William. 
As soon as the Exclusion Bill was revived, Charles, 
seeing. signs of a reaction in his favour, dissolved 
Parliament and appealed to the loyalty of the 
country. 

His Declaration called forth expressions of un- 
shaken attachment from the Church and the two 
Universities, which were strongholds of the Tory 
party; while the Whigs put forward a “ Defence of 
the late Parliament” that implicitly charged him with 
intending to subvert the constitution. Charles re- 
taliated by indicting Shaftesbury for having fomented 
insurrection and suborned witnesses to the Popish 
plot. Dryden’s masterly satire of ‘Absalom and 
Achitophel,” which was published at this crisis, 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES, aT 4 


reflected the conviction of the loyalists that the 
King’s boldness had averted another civil war. He 
was not yet master of the situation, for the grand 
jury of Middlesex threw out the indictment, and the 
Earl’s release was joyfully celebrated by his adherents. 
London continued so hostile to the Court that a 
design of abrogating its chartered liberties was 
thenceforth contemplated. But the tide of reaction 
had set in. Strong in the support of Louis, Charles 
could dispense with Parliamentary supplies, and 
evaded the renewal of his pledges to William, who 
visited England with the hope of winning him back 
to the Alliance. Louis, on his part, secure of Eng- 
land’s inaction, continued his aggressions upon the 
frontiers of Germany and Holland, while he crushed 
disaffection at home by a fresh persecution of the 
Huguenots. As if in imitation of this policy, Charles 
gratified the Church party by enforcing the penal 
statutes against the Nonconformists. James, who 
had been conducting a similar crusade against the 
Covenanters in Scotland, was recalled to Court, 
and Monmouth’s progresses through England were 
stopped by his arrest. By the aid of an obsequious 
Lord Mayor of London, who nominated Tory 
sheriffs, the Court contrived to secure verdicts from 
packed juries upon indictments for treason. This 
adroit conquest of the great Whig stronghold drove 
Shaftesbury to desperate courses. He planned a 
conspiracy, wherein Monmouth, Lord Russell, and 
other disaffected peers were to take part, but their 
reluctance or delay in executing his plans drove 
him to take flight to Holland in November, 1682, 


278 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


where he soon afterwards died. ‘The Whig leaders, 
still hoping to check the King’s course, held meetings 
with the view of forcing him to summon Parliament, 
but were compromised by some of their less scrupu- 
lous adherents, who concocted a plot for assassinating 
Charles and his brother, near the Rye House, on 
their way to Newmarket. Seizing the opportunity of 
crushing his opponents at once, the King issued a 
proclamation for their apprehension. Monmouth 
escaped to Holland, but Lords Russell and Essex, 
Algernon Sidney, and others were arrested and 
brought to trial. Essex committed suicide in the 
Tower ; Russell and Sidney were condemned and 
beheaded. ‘Their execution was followed by similar 
severities in Scotland, where several persons of dis- 
tinction were alleged to be implicated in the 
conspiracy. ‘The triumph of absolutism was, for the 
moment, complete. 

Though London and many parts of the country 
remained faithful to liberty, the loyalty which Charles 
had evoked found expression in extravagant declara- 
tions; the University of Oxford even proclaiming 
‘‘ passive obedience” to the sovereign as a religious 
duty. The King was too astute to venture upon a 
purely despotic rule, and directed his efforts to dis- 
arm opposition without exciting suspicion. Disre- 
garding the advice of Halifax and Danby (whom he 
released from the Tower) to. summon a new Parlia- 
ment, he depended for a revenue during the rest of 
his reign upon the customs and the French subsidy. 
In view of the eventual necessity of applying to 
Parliament, he made preparations for controlling its 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 279 


activity. The corporations, in whom the borough 
representation was virtually vested, and whose sym- 
pathies were predominantly Whig, were attacked by 
informations of ‘‘Quo warranto” for the abuse of 
their franchises. Judgments having been obtained 
against a few of them, the others were terrified into 
submission. New charters were then granted, whereby 
ultra-loyalists were appointed to the municipal offices, 
To provide against the risk of popular disaffection, 
the forces at the disposal of the Crown were largely 
augmented, and a reserve of six regiments retained 
in the service of Holland. 

This skilfully-planned conspiracy against national 
liberty was thwarted by the fatal illness of Charles, in 
February, 1685. Just before his death the recon- 
ciliation with the Catholic communion, which he had 
so long deferred, was secretly effected by the intro- 
duction of a priest into his bed-chamber, who, 
excluding all Protestant bystanders, took his con- 
fession and gave him the last sacrament. But that 
his mask of Anglicanism might still deceive the 
bishops and nobles in attendance, they were imme- 
diately recalled, and he received absolution from the 
hands of Bishop Ken. 

The accession of the Duke of York as James II. 
was unopposed. ‘Though known to be a rigid 
Catholic, his public assurance that he would preserve 
the established government in Church and State was 
accepted as ‘“‘the word of a king,” and so little were 
his real designs suspected that he was actually 
supposed to be sensitive to the national honour, and 
incapable of his brother’s subservience to France. 


280 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


He was, in truth, as wedded as any of the Stuarts to 
a belief in his divine right, and as determined to 
maintain the prerogative of the Crown at all risks. 
He only differed from his predecessors in having a 
duller intellect and a more bigoted attachment to 
dogmas which derived their sanction from a foreign 
source and were rejected by the majority of his 
subjects. Conscious that his twofold object of 
restraining Parliamentary liberty and establishing 
Catholic supremacy could only be attained by French 
aid, he was not less eager than Charles to be the 
minion of Louis. Though some uneasiness was 
excited by his throwing open to the public the chapel 
in which he had privately heard mass and his 
selecting Catholics for military posts, the new Par- 
liament which he summoned reflected the national 
confidence in disregarding these significant indica- 
tions. Without insisting upon any religious securities, 
it granted him a revenue of £ 2,000,000 for life. 

A fresh stimulus was soon given to the loyal 
sentiment which (except in certain Whig strongholds) 
animated the country at large by the landing of the 
Earl of Argyle in Scotland and of Monmouth in 
Dorsetshire, each at the head of a small force. The 
Earl, who had taken refuge in Holland from a sentence 
of death recorded against him in 1682, upon an un- 
founded charge of treason, was an ardent Protestant, 
and when Monmouth, the avowed champion of the 
same cause, joined him in exile, they concerted a 
scheme of simultaneously rallying all opponents of 
Catholic rule. Though joined by his clansmen, 
Argyle failed to muster other adherents, and his force 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES, . 281 


was weakened by divided counsels. It was quickly 
dispersed, and he himself captured and sent to the 
block. Monmouth was warmly welcomed in the 
western counties, where the Whigs and Noncon- 
formists were numerous, and soon mustered a force 
of 6,000 men ; but his assumption of the kingly title 
alienated many supporters, and his cause was repu- 
diated by all who were favourable to the claims of 
Mary and William. Both Houses declared their 
fidelity to the King, and passed a bill of attainder 
against Monmouth. The royal guards and local 
militia were quickly in the field, and, under the 
conduct of Lord Churchill (the future Marlborough), 
put the Duke’s army to utter rout upon the plain of 
Sedgemoor. He fled, but was captured in disguise, 
and shared the fate of Argyle. A merciless vengeance 
was inflicted upon his adherents by the instrumentality 
of Chief Justice Jeffreys, during a ‘ bloody circuit ” 
of the western counties. His cruelty gained the 
King’s cordial approval and the Great Seal for a 
reward. 

James took advantage of the rebellion to’raise his 
standing army to 20,000 men, who were manifestly 
intended for home service, as he made no secret of 
his aversion to the European Alliance against France. 
Only a week after his accession he assured the 
French ambassador that he counted upon the pro- 
tection of Louis, and would take no step without 
consulting him. The promise of a subsidy, which 
rewarded this servility, was acknowledged with profuse 
gratitude. Sunderland, the minister in whom James 
put most confidence, undertook to break off the 


282 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


friendly relations with Holland and Spain which the 
Parliament desired to maintain, and William was 
refused permission to visit England. The eyes of 
the nation were soon open to the danger which these 
symptoms portended. In October, 1685, the Edict 
of Nantes, which for a century had secured toleration 
and liberty of worship to the Huguenots of France, 
was suddenly revoked by Louis, and a systematic 
persecution set on foot. Their churches were de- 
molished, their schools closed, their pastors banished, 
under pain of being sent to the galleys ; parents were 
prohibited from teaching their children, and ordered. 
to have them baptised as Catholics ; while those who 
attempted to leave France were sentenced, if men, to 
the galleys, and, if women, to imprisonment for life ; 
their property being confiscated. Notwithstanding the 
relentless execution of these edicts and the enforced 
apostasy of many thousands of terrified Huguenots, 
nearly half a million made their escape, a large pro- 
portion of whom (estimated! as upwards of 120,000) 
took refuge on our shores. The unconcealed satis- 
faction shown by James when tidings of the persecu- 
tion reached England increased the indignation and 
horror with which his subjects regarded it. At the 
reassembling of Parliament, exception was taken to 
his appointments of Catholic officers, as an uncon- 
stitutional exercise of the “ dispensing power.” His 
haughty declaration that their legality must not be 
questioned and his demand for supplies to his new 
regiments provoked resistance. Obsequious as they 


’ Smiles, ‘* The Huguenots in England,” &c., p. 242. 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 283 


had hitherto been, the Commons by a bare majority 
resolved to postpone compliance with this demand 
until the grievance complained of had been redressed. 
In the Lords, Halifax, who had been dismissed from 
the Privy Council for refusing assent to a repeal of the 
Test Act, and Compton, Bishop of London, headed 
the opposition to the King’s violation of its provisions. 
Their proposal, that all existing and future appoint- 
ments should be confirmed by Parliamentary sanction, 
was rejected by James, who forthwith prorogued the 
Houses. 

The question of his right to dispense with penal 
laws he submitted to the decision of the Judges, 
having first secured its being given in his favour by 
dismissing four who had the courage to assert their 
independence. Having obtained an affirmative decree 
in June, 1686, he proceeded to act upon it to an 
extent which aroused general alarm. Catholics were 
appointed in large numbers to civil as well as military 
offices, four peers being admitted to the Privy 
Council. Monks, wearing the robes of their several 
orders, were permitted to walk through the streets. A 
splendid chapel was fitted up in St. James’s Palace, 
and a Jesuit school founded in the Savoy. A riot in 
the city at the opening of a new chapel afforded a 
pretext for forming a camp of 13,000 men at Hounslow. 
In Scotland, a violent change was made in the civil 
government by vesting it in two Catholic perverts, 
while a third was appointed to the command of 
Edinburgh Castle. The Scottish Parliament having 
rejected an Act for the toleration of Catholics, the 
Judges were directed to treat the penal statutes against 


284 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


them as void, a mandate which none dared disobey. 
In Ireland, Lord Tyrconnell, a Catholic, was placed 
at the head of the army, which he remodelled by 
enlisting 2,000 of his co-religionists, and dismissing 
the Protestant officers. Civil offices were thrown 
open to Catholics, and they took their seats in the 
Council. 

To silence opposition by the Church, James had 
already ordered the clergy to abstain from pulpit- 
attacks upon Catholicism, and instructed the Bishops 
to enforce the prohibition. This order they had not 
obeyed, and the controversial sermons which the 
metropolitan clergy persisted in delivering testified 
to the alarm which he had aroused. One such 
sermon, by the rector of St. Giles, so offended the 
King that he desired Bishop-Compton to suspend 
him. Compton’s reply, that he was only able to 
deal with the case when submitted to him judicially, 
determined James to revive the Court of High Com- 
mission (which the Long Parliament had abolished, 
and the first Restoration Parliament pronounced 
illegal), and to put at its head the Lord Chancellor 
Jeffreys. Its earliest act was to suspend Bishop 
Compton from his functions. Undaunted by the 
blow, the clergy continued to discuss the questions in 
dispute between Protestants and Catholics, both in 
the pulpit and in the press, which swarmed with 
their pamphlets. 

Even the Catholic party became uneasy at these 
slgns of resistance, and the Papal nuncio (whom, in 
defiance of the law which cancelled all relations with 
Rome, James had received in state at Windsor) 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 285 


advised a more moderate course. ‘The King’s in- 
fatuation was proof against remonstrances. Aware 
that his staunchest Tory and High Church adherents 
would not support his acts, and suspicious of their 
secret hostility, he dismissed from their offices several 
who refused to apostatise, including his first wife’s 
brothers, Lords Clarendon and Rochester, and sup- 
planted them by Catholics. ‘The refusal of other 
officials to assent to the repeal of the Test Act was 
also punished by dismissal. In April, 1687, he 
published a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending 
the penalties imposed by that Act, among others, 
upon both Nonconformists and Catholics, and re- 
moving their disabilities for office. His expectation 
that this measure would be sanctioned by Parliament, 
and ensure him the adherence of all religious dissi- 
dents, was not realised. Notwithstanding the grateful 
acknowledgments of a section of the Nonconformists, 
the majority refused to accept an illegal emancipation. 
Parliament proving equally hostile to his plans, he 
dissolved it in July, and writs were issued for a new 
election. The Lord-lieutenants of each county were 
instructed to restrict the choice of borough candidates 
to such as would pledge themselves to the repeal of 
the Test Act, and sound the magistrates respecting 
their intentions to vote, those who refused to comply 
being dismissed. But these devices to coerce the 
corporations and the magistrates into submission had 
at last to be abandoned as impracticable. 

Baffled in his hope of obtaining a subservient 
House of Commons, James turned to the task of 
controlling the Universities, as the chief Protestant 


286 POST NORMAN BRITAIN 


seminaries of the clergy and gentry.. At Oxford, a 
Roman Catholic was appointed Dean of Christchurch, 
a recent convert permitted to retain the Mastership 
of University College, and a third nominated to that 
of Magdalen. When the Fellows declined to accept 
the Crown’s nominee, and chose a President from their 
own body, the Ecclesiastical Commission declared 
the election void. Upon the refusal of the Fellows 
to accept a second nominee, special commissioners 
were despatched, who forcibly installed him, and 
replaced the Fellows by Roman Catholics. A similar 
attack was directed against Cambridge, its Vice- 
Chancellor being expelled for withholding a master’s 
degree from a monk, nominated by the Crown, who 
refused to sign the articles. 

The evident determination of his subjects to resist 
the repeal of the Test Act, and the fear that, even if 
he succeeded in carrying it, the victory would be 
reversed at his death, at last drove James to solicit 
the intervention of his son-in-law. William had been 
watching with painful interest the increasing diver- 
gence of the royal policy from the course which he 
desired. Exasperated by the repeated encroachments 
of Louis upon their territory, the German princes 
bound themselves by a treaty at Augsburg, in 1686, 
to withstand any fresh aggression by force. For the 
success of a European coalition against France, the 
help of England was requisite. But since his failure 
to persuade James to join the Grand Alliance, William 
had held aloof from English affairs, refusing either to 
countenance an absolutist scheme of toleration which 
might be fatal to Protestantism ora resistance to it 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 287. 


which might be fatal to liberty. Many cautiously- 
worded communications from representatives of various 
parties in England arrived at the same time as the 
King’s request for his intervention, assuring him of 
their sympathy, and warning him against a measure 
which would strengthen the Catholic cause and 
imperil Mary’s succession. He accordingly informed 
James that he was unable to comply with his wish. 
This refusal determined the King upon making a fresh 
effort for Parliamentary support. He hoped that the 
Queen might soon give birth to a son, who would 
frustrate Mary’s succession ; and to ensure the educa- 
tion of this heir as a Catholic in the event of his 
own death, it was necessary to surround the throne 
with Catholic ministers, whose offices could only be 
secured by a repeal of the Test Act. Postponing 
until November the election which had been fixed for 
February, 1688, he published in April a further 
Declaration of Indulgence, appealing to the nation 
on behalf of liberty of conscience. ‘The Declaration 
was ordered to be read in every parish church on 
two successive Sundays, but the clergy, headed by the 
Bishops, refused as a body to read it. Sancroft, the 
Primate, and six other Bishops addressed a protest 
to the King against its illegality. Indignant at their 
presumption, he instructed the Ecclesiastical Com- 
missioners to suspend them, but was persuaded by 
Jeffreys to try the safer course of prosecution. They 
were accordingly committed to the Tower upon a 
charge of libel. Sympathising crowds attended them 
on the way, and the sentinels knelt for their blessing 
at the prison gates. When they were brought to trial 


288 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


on June 29, even the subservient Judges and a jury 
chosen by the Crown dared not brave the storm of 
public feeling. ‘The acquittal of the Bishops was 
hailed with tumultuous rejoicing, which resounded 
through the country, and was echoed in the King’s 
hearing by his soldiers at Hounslow. 

His obstinacy remained unshaken by the signs of 
disaffection which alarmed his stoutest adherents. 
Persisting in his plan of terrorism, he dismissed the 
Judges who had inclined to the side of the Bishops, 
and directed the names of the clergy who refused to 
read the Declaration to be reported to the Commis- 
sioners. The camp at Hounslow was broken up, 
the place of the disaffected troops being filled by 
Irish recruits. Against this last step the Catholic 
peers who were members of the Council vainly re- 
monstrated. .The recruits soon became the subject 
of a satirical ballad with the burden of ‘‘ Lillibullero,” 
which was sung through the length and breadth of 
England, and. several officers surrendered their 
commissions to escape the duty of enrolling them. 
Popular irritation was further inflamed by the an- 
nouncement of the Queen’s delivery of a son, which 
occurred a few days before the trial of the Bishops. 
In spite of accumulated proofs that the birth had 
really taken place, it was generally discredited. 
Whether genuine or fabricated, the announcement 
precipitated the crisis which had long been immi- 
nent. 

Ten days afterwards an invitation was addressed to 
William by Lords Devonshire and Danby, Bishop 
Compton, and other leading men, both Whigs and 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 289 


Tories, that he should take up arms for the protection 
of English liberties and the Protestant faith. It was 
impossible for him to refuse to head a movement 
upon the issue of which the interests of his wife and 
the success of his most cherished schemes depended. 
James had by this time irrevocably sided with Louis 
against the Allies. In concert with Sweden, he had 
recently threatened the Dutch, recalled the English 
and Scotch troops in their service, and accepted a 
subsidy from Louis for fitting out a fleet to attack 
their coasts. If victorious over his own subjects, 
the weight of England would be thrown into the 
French scale as soon as the great European conflict 
commenced. If, on the other hand, William declined 
the proffered leadership, and the rebels triumphed 
without his aid, they might justly resent his desertion 
by passing over Mary’s claim to the crown and re- 
verting to the Commonwealth. Upon all these 
grounds he decided to accept the offer. Having 
persuaded the political faction opposed to him in 
the government of Holland that an alliance of France 
and England would overwhelm the State, he gained 
their consent to the muster of a military and naval 
armament for its defence, and then obtained a promise 
from Brandenburg that it would send 9,000 men to 
replace the Dutch troops required for the expedition. 
Upon the receipt of William’s affirmative answer and 
the news of his warlike preparations, several of the 
great Whig and Tory nobles came or sent over 
representatives to the Hague in token of their ad- 
herence; while others who remained at home 
organised the rising upon which he counted for 
U 


2 go POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


support. The vengeance which James had brought 
upon his own head was so plainly about to fall, 
that Sunderland, who had intimation of these de- 
signs, betrayed him, and to escape punishment for 
complicity in his master’s misdeeds, purchased 
William’s forgiveness by a voluntary disclosure of 
State secrets. 

James was still blind to the consequences of his 
folly, and believed that a threat of war by Louis 
would suffice to check any attempt of William to 
invade England. Such a threat was addressed to 
Holland early in September, 1688, but was not 
seriously intended, as Louis had already determined 
upon attacking Germany first. When a few weeks 
afterwards his forces marched upon the Rhine, the 
Dutch armaments were approaching completion. The 
tidings that French aid was no longer available at 
last opened the eyes of James to his danger, and he 
made desperate efforts to retrace his steps. The 
Ecclesiastical Commission was dissolved, and a 
personal appeal for support made to the Bishops. 
London and most of the disfranchised boroughs were 
reinstated. The magistrates whom he had dismissed 
were restored to office, and the Fellows of Magdalen 
College replaced. A proclamation was even issued 
for the closing of Catholic chapels and schools. 
Sunderland, who was still in power, urged him to 
summon Parliament at once. But in the present 
temper of the nation it was almost certain that a new 
House of Commons would refuse supplies, unless he 
consented to a war with France and to entrust its 
prosecution to William. His suspicions of Sunder- 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 290C 


land’s good faith were therefore aroused by this 
advice, and, dismissing him from office, he reverted 
to his policy of dependence upon Louis. 

The ‘‘ Declaration” of the Prince of Orange, set- 
ting forth the object of his expedition, appeared at 
this crisis. It demanded the redress of the national 
grievances and the assembling of a free Parliament 
for the settlement of civil liberty and the Protestant 
faith; promised toleration to Nonconformists and 
licence of worship to Catholics; and reserved any 
questions as to the legitimacy of the alleged Prince 
of Wales and the succession to the throne for the 
decision of Parliament. The military and naval 
armament which was to give effect to this manifesto 
consisted of 600 transports, carrying 13,000 troops, 
and convoyed by fifty men-of-war. Besides Dutch, 
Swedes, and Brandenburgers, this force included 
three infantry regiments of French Huguenots, and 
a squadron of cavalry, mostly veteran soldiers, 
commanded by officers of distinction. ‘Though de- 
layed by contrary winds and a severe storm, the 
flotilla sailed round the English coast, unopposed by 
the royal fleet which lay in the Downs, and anchored 
at Torbay on the 4th November. Upon the follow- 
ing day, memorable as a great Protestant anniversary, 
William landed, and the coincidence was hailed by 
his adherents as an omen of success. The nobility 
and gentry of the western counties soon joined his 
standard, and Plymouth declared for him. When 
the royal army, which had been increased by Irish 
and Scotch recruits to the number of 40,000 men, 
was recalled from the north to meet the invader, its 

[8 Ie 


292 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


departure was followed by a general rising. Danby, 
at the head of the Yorkshire nobles and squires, 
marched to Derby, where those of the midland and 
eastern counties were assembled, under Lord Devon- 
shire. The cry of a free Parliament was echoed 
by the militia of York, and the garrison of Hull. 
Norwich, and Oxford welcomed the local magnates 
who mustered their forces for the Prince, and Bristol 
opened its gates at his approach. He advanced to 
Salisbury, where the royal army was concentrated, 
but the disaffection which permeated its ranks and 
the mistrust of its officers rendered serious opposition 
impossible, and it retreated in disorder. Convinced - 
by the desertion of his best general, Lord Churchill, 
and many others upon whom he had counted, that it 
was useless to prolong the struggle, James fled in 
haste to London, where he learned that his daughter, 
Anne, had abandoned the palace of St. James and 
taken refuge with Danby’s force. He was so crushed 
by these proofs of the ruin of his cause that he 
determined upon flight. The Queen and her child 
having escaped to France in disguise, he set out to 
follow them on the roth December, but the fisher- 
men of Sheppey, whence he attempted to embark, 
arrested him as a foreign Jesuit, and conveyed him 
to Faversham, where he was obliged to announce 
himself and appeal for aid to the Lord-lieutenant of 
the county. He was thence conducted back to 
London by a guard despatched by some of the lead- 
ing peers and Bishops, who, as soon as his flight 
became known, had formed themselves into a 
Provisional Governmept to preserve order. For a 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 293 


few days he clung to the hope of regaining power, 
and proposed an interview with William at Whitehall 
to settle the questions which agitated the nation. 
He was encouraged in this hope by certain of the 
Tory leaders, who shrank from a change of dynasty, 
and trusted that he might become reconciled to 
Parliament by abandoning his scheme of establishing 
Catholicism. But such a delusion was scouted by 
the Whigs, who urged upon William the futility of 
any arrangement which left the government in the 
hands of James. The Prince, accordingly, remained 
at Windsor, without replying to the King’s invitation. 
Dutch troops, however, were sent to Westminster to 
replace the royal guards, and a deputation of peers 
waited upon James to intimate the prudence of his 
choosing another residence. His alarm revived, and, 
embracing the opportunity of escape which was 
obviously given him, he left London for Rochester, 
whence, on the 23rd December he embarked for 
France. 

On William’s arrival in London, the Provisional 
Government surrendered its power into his hands, 
and a convention of both Houses of Parliament 
met in January, 1689. A resolution passed by the 
Whig majority in the Commons, that James by his 
violation of the laws had forfeited the throne, which 
was now vacant, was rejected by the Tory majority in 
the Lords. After further discussion, a vote was finally 
agreed to at the instance of Danby that the succession 
had become vested in Mary. But this decision 
neither Mary nor William would accept ; she on her 
part declining the throne unless it were shared by 


294 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


her husband, and he objecting to occupy the sub- 
ordinate place of consort or regent. In the face 
of their determination, the Houses had no choice 
but to acquiesce in their joint sovereignty, and that 
the functions of government should be exercised by 
William alone. As a _ precautionary measure, a 
Declaration of Rights was drawn up and agreed to 
by both Houses, which, after recounting the illegal 
acts of which James had been guilty, asserted the | 
right of all English subjects to free Parliamentary 
representation and impartial justice; claimed for 
both Houses the privilege of free debate ; demanded 
that Protestants’should be secured in the enjoyment 
of religious liberty, and the sovereign be bound to 
uphold the Protestant faith and the laws and rights 
of the nation; expressed the confidence of the 
Houses that the assurances which William had given 
of his intention to deliver and preserve those rights 
from injury would be fulfilled; and finally declared 
the Prince and Princess of Orange to be King and 
Queen of England. On the 13th February, 1680, 
this Declaration having been presented to William 
and Mary at Whitehall, the Houses, by the voice of 
Halifax, solemnly tendered the crown to their accept- 
ance. In the name of himself and his wife, William 
accepted it with a reiterated assurance of their resolve 
to maintain the laws of the realm and to govern by 
the advice of Parliament. 

This impressive ceremony signalised the termination 
of the long struggle between dynastic absolutism and 
popular freedom ; the final emancipation, by foreign 
instrumentality, of a people singularly loyal to the 


FOREIGN INFLUENCES, 295 


claims of tradition and usage, but yet more tenacious 
of its political rights and religious liberties. The 
pledge thus exacted from a new sovereign, under such 
exceptional circumstances, constitutes the tenure upon 
which every succeeding sovereign has held the throne 
of England. It has never since been broken, and 
the confidence that its breach is impossible imparts 
to the nation and the monarch alike an abiding sense 
of security. 


296 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


CHAPTER XII. 


Miscellaneous foreign influences from the Restoration to the 
Revolution. 


Ir is impossible to gainsay the verdict of history that 
the deterioration which the moral tone of English 
society underwent during the reign of Charles II. was 
mainly due to a natural reaction against the excessive 
constraint of the Puritan véezme. The form which 
that deterioration assumed was, however, determined 
by special rather than general causes, and of these 
the influence of France was undoubtedly the strongest. 
The King inherited from both parents a strain of 
vicious blood which drew its contamination from 
France. His ancestress, Mary Stuart, had been bred 
at the corrupt court of Catherine de’ Medici, and 
there learned how to reconcile a strict religious creed 
with the indulgence of sensual delights which led 
to her ultimate ruin. His mother was the daughter 
of a king whose libertinism was notorious, and her 
own reputation was not irreproachable. ‘The circum- 
stances under which his youth was passed precluded 
the exercise of an adequate restraint upon his pro- 
pensities. So recklessly did he gratify them during 
his exile that by the time he came to the throne, 
profligacy had become an inveterate habit which he 
made no attempt to check or disguise. The close 
political relations into which Charles entered with 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 297 


Louis XIV. encouraged him in assimilating the 
practices of the Court of London to those of Paris. 
If any inducement to that end had been lacking, it 
would have been supplied by the instalment of 
Louise de Querouaille as his favourite mistress, under 
whose ascendancy the influence of France continued 
paramount to the end of his reign. The licentious 
example set by Charles was but too faithfully copied 
by his courtiers, and thence transmitted to the circles 
roundthem. After the wont of copyists, the defects 
of their model were chiefly selected for imitation, 
and exaggerated. The veil of decorum which con- 
ceiled the evidences of impurity from the public gaze 
in Paris was cast aside in London, and vice in its 
grossest forms flaunted in the face of day. Men of 
rank and breeding, such as Rochester and Sedley, 
vied with each other in inventing fresh extravagances 
of debauchery. Religion and virtue were held up to 
ridicule, and the breach of their most sacred obliga- 
tions paraded. Nor was the spread of this mischievous 
epidemic confined to morals and manners. The 
debased taste, splendid luxury, and frivolous pleasures 
of the French Renaissance were imported to England 
en bloc. Language, literature, art, the drama, even 
the ceremonial music of the Church, were all infected 
“by the prevailing contagion. To interlard his con- 
versation with French phrases became the ambition of 
every fine gentleman. Even so masculine a writer as 
Dryden was not ashamed to choose a French word 
when its English equivalent would have expressed 
his meaning as well. The domination which the 
French critics and dramatists exercised over our own 


298 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


forms a subject of itself which must be reserved for 
separate consideration. 

France, however, has always been remarkable 
for strangely-composite characteristics, and if this 
period exhibits her as a source of pollution and 
disease, it reveals her also as a fountain of pure and 
fertilising waters. The immigration of Huguenot 
refugees, consequent upon the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes, in 1685, made a contribution to our 
national strength, the importance of which, whether 
considered as an accession of racial, moral, or indus- 
trial elements, it would be difficult to overrate. 
Among the 120,000 persons who are estimated to 
have settled here, there was a great diversity of in- 
tellectual power, professional occupation, and social 
rank. They included such savants as Solomon de 
Caus and Papin, illustrious for their researches and 
experiments respecting the motive-power of steam ; 
Desaguliers, who became the demonstrator and 
curator of the Royal Society ; and De Moivre, the 
mathematician, whose ‘‘ Doctrine of Chances” 
afforded a basis for the system of life-assurance. 
Prominent among scholars and men of letters were 
Rapin-Thoyras, the historian; Du Moulin, after- 
wards Professor of history at Oxford; Gagnier, the 
orientalist; Motteaux, the translator of Cervantes and 
Rabelais ; and Boyer, the lexicographer. ‘The list of 
divines numbered Abbadie, Saurin, Allix, Dela Motte, 
Drelincourt, and others distinguished for their piety 
and eloquence. Among soldiers and statesmen were 
Marshal Schomberg, who became the hero of the 
battle of the Boyne; the Marquis de Ruvigny, after- 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 299 


wards Earl of Galway; Jean Cavalier, the famous 
Camisard leader ; and Jean Louis Ligonier, created 
Earl Ligonier, the future veteran of Malplaquet, 
Dettingen, and Fontenoy. Less famous in their 
own persons than in their descendants were the 
ancestors of families as honourably remembered in 
our annals as those of Bosanquet, Labouchere, 
Lefevre, Romilly, Boileau, Portal, Layard, Gambier, 
Martineau, Austin, Newman, Trench, Faber, Dollond, 
De la Rue, Courtauld, and Fourdrinier. Men of 
such mark in their respective callings as David 
Garrick, the actor ; Baron Maseres, the judge; Jortin, 
the biographer of Erasmus ; Romaine, the Calvinistic 
divine ; Maturin, the dramatist ; Albany Fonblanque, 
the journalist ; Marryatt and Chamier, the novelists ; 
Sydney Smith, the wit and essayist; and Sir George 
Cornewall Lewis, the statesman, all claimed descent, 
either on the father’s or the mother’s side, from 
Huguenot refugees. The list might probably be 
prolonged but for the change of name adopted by 
many of the immigrants on becoming naturalised, 
which has rendered their identification difficult. 
Diversified and invaluable as were the mental qualities 
contributed by the immigrants, the new moral fibre 
which they imparted to our organism must be 
reckoned as the most precious of their gifts. The 
loyalty to conscience, the zeal for truth, which nerved 
men and women of all ranks and ages to sunder the 
strongest ties of affection, patriotism, and interest, 
and begin the labour of life afresh in a foreign 
land, are heroic virtues of which Englishmen, though 
never lacking them, cannot possess too much. 


300 POST NORMAN BRITAIN, 


The number of manufacturers and skilled workmen 
in various branches of industry who were driven into 
exile by the Revocation was so large (amounting 
according to one calculation to 100,000) as practically 
to shift the centre of commercial activity from France 
to England. ‘The demands of the English world 
of fashion for foreign articles of dress, upholstery, 
and wivfu, to which the French had almost exclu- 
sively ministered, were henceforth supplied at home, 
and the necessity of importing such commodities at 
a great cost was superseded. The bigotry of Louis 
thus wrought its own Nemesis; the exhaustion of 
his most prosperous provinces serving to enrich the 
poverty of his bitterest foe. In northern France, 
more especially in Normandy and Brittany, many 
manufactures were actually extinguished by the 
wholesale emigration of masters and men. Great 
numbers of the immigrants settled in London, chiefly in 
the districts of Soho, Spitalfields, and Bethnal Green, 
where they proceeded to open factories and carry on 
their several industries. The most thriving was the 
silk-manufacture established at Spitalfields by a band 
of weavers from Lyons and Tours, who brought with 
them the art of making lustrings, taffeties, figured 
silks, velvets, and other stuffs, of which France had 
hitherto preserved the secret and enjoyed a monopoly. 
Calico-printing, button-making, hat-making,  lace- 
making, glass-making, and paper-making, some of 
which had been introduced into England by small 
bodies of refugees in the preceding century, but up to 
this time continued to be practised upon a large 
scale almost exclusively in France, were now carried 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 301 


by the new settlers into various parts of England, 
Scotland, and Ireland, where, after achieving in many 
instances the prosperity of their founders, they 
eventually became naturalised crafts. The manufac- 
ture of brocades, tabinets, &c., for which Norwich 
was long celebrated, the lace-making of Buckingham- 
shire and adjoining counties, and the flax and poplin 
factories of Ireland were originated or stimulated into 
fresh activity by Huguenot exiles. The paper-mills 
now standing upon the rivers Darent in Kentand Itchin 
in Hants were thus established, the latter remaining in 
the possession of a descendant of the Huguenot family 
by whom they were erected. Many of the technical 
terms still used in the manufacture both of paper and 
glass are obviously of French origin, and their intro- 
duction is believed to date from this period. The 
industrial enterprise and inventive skill of the new- 
comers were further attested by the number of 
patents which they took out for improved processes 
of manufacture. ‘The recurrence of French names 
is very marked upon the records of the Patent Office 
for several years after the Revocation. 

A large accession to the French Protestant churches 
was required for the accommodation of the immi:. 
grants, and at the beginning of the last century these 
numbered not less than thirty-five in London and its 
suburbs alone. Many of them still exist, but, owing 
to the gradual absorption of the exiles into the body 
of the English people, the majority have been con- 
verted to other uses. 

The French Renaissance has left such obvious 
proofs of its dominating influence over our Restora- 


302 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


tion literature as to distract attention from any other, 
but the masterpieces of the greatest poet of this 
period evince a profound antagonism to its spirit. 
In the ‘Paradise Lost” of Milton, published in 
1667, and in his ‘Samson Agonistes,” published in 
1671, there are abundant evidences that he had 
drunk deeply at the fountains of Greek and Roman 
art, but the draught had invigorated and refreshed 
his mind without polluting it. Of his presentment 
of the Hebrew epos, which was his first theme, it 
has been well said that ‘‘the stern idealism of 
Geneva is clothed in the gorgeous robes of the 
Renaissance: 2h.75 The . ‘ Paradise Lost pate 
is the epic of Puritanism. Its scheme is the problem 
with which the Puritan wrestled in hours of gloom 
and darkness—the problem of sin and redemption, 
of the world-wide struggle of evil against good.” ! 
Its historical interest is heightened by the poet’s 
striking and pathetic references to the circumstances 
under which it was written ; to the blindness which he 
had contracted by his devotion to official duty as 
Secretary of the Commonwealth Government; to 
the perils by which he was surrounded sited the 
Restoration ;— 
_ though fall’n on evil days, 


On evil days though fall’n, and evil tongues ; 
In darkness, and with dangers compass’d round ;— 


to the open debauchery and violence that prevailed 
under the new 7égime,; and to the degradation to 


' Green’s ‘‘ History of the English People,” vol. ii. 
Ps 379: : 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 303 


which ecclesiastical government had been reduced 
in days, when into God’s 


Church lewd hirelings climb. 


For his choice of a subiect and the method of 
handling it, some critics have surmised that Milton 
was indebted to the Dutch poet, Vondel, whose 
“Lucifer” appeared fourteen years before the publi- 
cation of ‘“ Paradise Lost,” but it is questionable 
whether he was likely to be acquainted with Dutch 
literature, or if the resemblances that exist between 
the two works amount to more than coincidences. 

In “Samson Agonistes,” it is not improbable 
that Milton designed to typify the fate of slavery 
and scorn which the great cause of Puritanism 
temporarily suffered under the yoke of the Cavalier 
reactionaries, and the revolutionary Nemesis which 
he foresaw would avenge it. One of the choric 
passages contains a pointed allusion to the penalties 
which had fallen upon the surviving adherents of the 
Commonwealth :— 

Or else captivated ; 
Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times, 
And condemnation of the ingrateful multitude... 
>, ee causeless suffering 
The punishment of dissolute days. 


The revulsion of national sentiment which pro- 
duced the Restoration gives historical importance to 
the ‘ Hudibras” of Samuel Butler, a coarse but 
pungent satire upon such of the superficial aspects of 
Puritanism as were unworthy and ridiculous. The 
first part appeared in 1663, and the second in the 


304 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


following year. Its motive was obviously suggested 
by that of ‘‘Don Quixote,” which had been made 
known to English readers by Shelton’s translation. 

The unabated force of the Puritan movement 
found expression in the “ Pilgrim’s Progress” of 
John Bunyan, of which Part I. was published in 
1678 and Part II. in 1684. Its dramatic allegory 
and incisive delineations of character might of 
themselves have sufficed to give it literary celebrity, 
but its immense popularity could only have been 
attained by its appeals to a large class of homely 
readers, already familiar with the themes of which it 
treated and in sympathy with the teaching it 
conveyed. 

The first important poem by which John Dryden 
made his mark upon English literature, ‘‘ Annus 
Mirabilis,” commemorated the naval war between 
England and Holland, as prominent among the 
striking events of 1666. The temporary triumph of 
the national flag which justified his poem was disas- 
trously reversed in the following year, when the 
Dutch fleet sailed unopposed up the Thames. 

Dryden’s ‘‘ Absalom and Achitophel” has already 
been referred to as a political satire, called forth by 
the agitation of 1681. Its object was to stimulate 
the reaction of loyalty provoked by Shaftesbury’s 
violence, and to which Charles had adroitly appealed. 
In selecting a Scriptural narrative for the subject of 
his apologue, Dryden may have been actuated by 
the hope of engaging the sympathies of some of 
Shaftesbury’s Presbyterian supporters. David repre- 
sented the King; Absalom, his rebellious son, Mon- 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 305 


mouth; Achitophel, Shaftesbury; Zimri, Buckingham; 
and Corah, Oates; the Roman Catholics figuring 
as Jebusites, and the Nonconformists as Levites. 
The fluctuations of religious strife by which the 
nation was distracted during the last decade of the 
Stuarts’ rule are mirrored in two other of Dryden’s 
best-known poems, ‘‘ Religio Laici” and ‘‘ The Hind 
and Panther.” The former, published in 1682, 
recorded the poet’s adherence to the Anglican 
Church as a via media between the pretensions of 
the Church of Rome to supremacy over the pre- 
rogatives of the Crown and the revolt against 
authority, which enlisted Nonconformists and Re- 
publicans under the same banner. Five years later, 
the publication of the ‘Hind and Panther” 
announced his conversion to the Romish com- 
munion, and his desire to promote the union between 
it and the Established Church upon which James II. 
was bent. 

The stage, to which Dryden devoted the best years 
of his life, although his natural genius disposed him 
to work in other fields, was the chief instrument and 
index of the revolution in taste and morals effected 
by the influence of the French Renaissance. Since 
the time of Ronsard and Malherbe, the literary activity 
of France had become concentrated in attention to 
metrical form and purity of diction. Though carried 
to an excess of pedantic affectation and absurdity 
which provoked the criticism of Boileau and the 
mockery of Moliére, this formalism was reduced by 
Corneille and Racine into strict canons of dramatic 
art, which obtained general acceptance and ruled 

X 


306 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


the stage for two centuries afterwards. Unity of 
action, unity of time, and unity of place were thereby 
prescribed as essential to the structure of tragedy, 
and the rhyming couplet of ten-syllabled lines as the 
measure alone suited to heroic themes. In comedy, 
Corneille and his school were mainly influenced by 
the study of the Spanish dramatists, Lopé de Vega 
and Calderon ; making use of the same motives of 
love-intrigue and adventure upon which the machinery 
of their plots almost invariably turns. The low moral 
standard of a society regulated by the dissolute court 
of Louis XIV. encouraged the choice of vicious 
motives and characters which distinguishes this 
comedy, and dictated the tone of suggestive impurity 
that pervades its dialogue. The artistic canons and 
the immoral types of the French stage naturally com- 
mended themselves for imitation to English dramatists, 
who depended upon the patronage of such a sovereign 
as Charles II. and the aristocratic circle over which 
he presided. His disposition to set up a French model 
of taste for his own capital was shown by his sending 
Betterton, the leading actor of the day, over to Paris 
for the purpose of observing the stage-management 
at its principal theatres, and borrowing such improve- 
ments as were readily adaptable. The love of dramatic 
representations, which had characterised the English 
people since the middle of the sixteenth century, 
was but little checked by the Puritan restrictions, 
and only revived the more keenly at the Restoration. 
Even under the Commonwealth, Sir William Davenant 
contrived to evade its interdict upon stage-plays 
by opening a house in 1656 for the performance 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 307 


of ‘‘operas,” in which recitative was interspersed 
with musical accompaniments, songs, and choruses. 
This form of entertainment was of Italian origin, 
but had recently been introduced into France, 
whence Davenant imported it. After the Restora- 
tion, he obtained a patent for the Duke of York’s 
company of players, who acted in Lincoln’s Inn 
Fields, and by a special clause was permitted to 
employ actresses in female parts, hitherto played by 
youths. Thomas Killigrew, who was appointed 
manager of the King’s Company in Drury Lane, 
was well acquainted with the Continent, and made 
it his boast that of the nine plays which he 
published in 1664 eight were written in foreign 
cities. 

Dryden, whose connexion with the stage began 
with the production of his “Wild Gallant,” in 
February, 1663, although repudiating his obligation 
to French influence, practically recognised it by 
adopting the ten-syllabled rhymed couplet in “ The 
Indian Queen,” which he wrote a few months later 
in concert with Sir Robert Howard. In the preface 
to his third play, ‘‘ The Rival Ladies,” he laboriously 
defended the substitution of rhyme for blank verse, 
as better suited to the dignity of tragedy, and argued 
that, admitting it to be an innovation, it was unrea- 
sonable to ‘oppose ourselves to the most polished 
and civilised nations of Europe.” In an essay upon 
dramatic poetry written in the form of a dialogue, and 
published in 1667, he maintained this preference 
against the animadversions of Sir Robert Howard, 
and in a subsequent essay appealed to contemporary 

2 


308 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Opinion as so manifestly in favour of rhyme, that 
“very few tragedies in this age shall be received 
without it.” The three unities of time, place, and 
action formulated by the French tragedians were 
also the subject of discussion by the speakers in 
Dryden’s. dialogue. In the mouths of Lisideius 
(Sir Charles Sedley) and of Neander (himself) argu- 
ments were put to prove that these rules were drawn 
from the ancients, and had already been practised 
by the greatest English dramatists ; but, while thus 
challenging the credit of the French to their inven- 
tion, the duty of observing them was tacitly admitted. 
The extravagantly-heroic sentiments and the stilted, 
inflated language which characterise the tragedies of 
Dryden and the Restoration writers generally, cannot 
be attributed to their French dramatic models, but 
were probably imitated from the romancists, whose 
works continued in vogue. The degradation of public 
taste which, with the glories of the Elizabethan drama 
still in remembrance, could tolerate the exhibition of 
rant and bombast, was manifested in the mutilation 
of sorne of Shakespeare’s masterpieces and in the 
preference avowed by even such cultivated men as 
Pepys for the French imitations which disputed pos- 
session of the stage. 

In comedy, the signs of decadence were still more 
evident. Discarding the superficial decorum and 
polish which veiled the ignoble motives and impure 
suggestions of their models, the comic dramatists of 
the Restoration vaunted their contempt of all moral 
restraint. Decency was abandoned, marriage made 
the subject of ridicule, and the coarsest debauchery 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 309 


represented as the normal and permissible practice 
of society. ‘The mischief effected by this perversion 
of a valuable intellectual and moral agency to the 
basest uses has not been confined to the age which 
wrought it. Its consequences are still felt in the 
unavoidable interdiction to young students of the 
dramas of so great a writer as Dryden, which, in 
spite of their grave blemishes, abound in passages 
of striking vigour and beauty. 

Besides their obligation to French influences for 
the structure, motives, and style of their plays, the 
Restoration dramatists freely availed themselves of 
the plots and characters of popular French or Spanish 
pieces by way of adaptation or translation. Dryden’s 
“Sir Martin Marr-all,” produced in 1667, is a version 
of Moliere’s “ L’Etourdi”; his ‘An Evening’s Love” 
was drawn from Thomas Corneille’s ‘‘ Le Feint As- 
trologue” and Moliére’s “‘ Le Dépit Amoreux.” The 
suggestion of his ‘‘ Conquest of Granada” was ob- 
tained from Mdlle. de Scuderi’s “ Almahide,” and 
one of its chief characters, Almanzor, admittedly 
modelled in part upon Calpreneéde’s Artaban. Shadwell 
took his “Miser” from Molitre’s “‘L’Avare”; Crowne 
his.’ Siri Courtly Nice” from; the ““ NotPuede:Serz’ 
of the Spanish comedian, Moreto; Settle his ‘‘ Ibra- 
ham” from a novel of Scuderi’s. Otway borrowed 
the plots of ‘‘ Don Carlos” and ‘ Venice Preserved ” 
from a novel and an historical romance by the Abbé 
de St. Real; his ‘‘Titus and Berenice” was a version 
of Racine’s ‘‘Berenice”; and his ‘‘Cheats of Scapin ” 
of Moliere’s comedy of that name. Wycherley’s 
“‘Country Wife” is based upon Moliere’s “ L’Ecole 


310 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


des Femmes,” and his “ Plain Dealer” upon “Le 
Misanthrope.” 

In 1673, Boileau, whose satires upon the vapid 
extravagance of the fashionable French romancists 
and the pedantic purism of the Academicians 
had established his reputation, published “ L’Art 
Poétique,” in which his theory of poetical criticism is 
elaborately formulated. Inspired by Horace’s ‘ Ars 
Poetica,” it assumed the classical literature of Greece 
and Rome as an authoritative standard by which to 
measure the work of every modern poet; prescribed 
rational “ good sense” and a strict attention to form 
as the first requirements of art; and implicitly 
excluded passion, imagination, and fancy as super- 
fluous elements. Accepted by general consent in 
France as a critical code from which there was no 
appeal, and enforced by the advocacy of Bossu, 
Rapin, and other able writers, it long continued to 
dictate the conditions to which the poetic genius of 
the race must conform. Overlooking the fact that, 
while French belongs to the Latin family of languages, 
English is structurally Teutonic, Dryden, Lords 
Roscommon and Mulgrave (afterwards Duke of 
Buckinghamshire), applied Boileau’s rules to their 
own literature. In the preface to his revised version 
of Shakespeare’s ‘Troilus and Cressida,” Dryden 
outlined an ideal of poetical perfection which sub- 
stantially agrees with the rules laid down by Boileau, 
and cited, with approval, the arguments by which 
Bossu and Rapin had supported them. His own 
practice, and that of his chief disciple, Pope, estab- 
lished these principles so firmly that for nearly a 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. ae 


century afterwards English poetry scarcely deviated 
from the same lines. 

An increased number of translations from the 
Latin classics indicated the growth of a literary 
demand created by their acceptance as an artistic 
standard. Dryden largely ministered to this demand 
by his translations of Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Juvenal, 
and Persius, published in a series of miscellanies, to 
which other hands also contributed. Translations of 
Lucretius by Creech, of Seneca and Cicero by 
Roger L’Estrange, were in contemporary repute. 
The Greek classics were not altogether neglected ; 
Cowley translating two of Pindar’s odes, and com- 
posing a series of original odes in the Pindaric 
manner which invited many inferior imitators. 
Specimens of Homer and Theocritus were also 
included among Dryden’s miscellanies. 

Translations of several celebrated French works 
were published during this period, of which the 
best-rremembered are Montaigne’s ‘‘ Essays,” by 
Charles Cotton; Rochefoucauld’s “ Maxims,” and 
‘‘ Fontenelle’s ‘“ Plurality of Worlds,” by Aphra Behn, 
pudeetomeiles,«( Foraces: andew, Pompec aw 
Katherine Philips (Orinda). 

Continental scholarship was represented in England 
during the reign of Charles II. by Isaac Vossius, a 
native of Leyden, whose reputation for classical 
learning almost equalled that of his father, Gerard. 
He came over in 1670, was made a Canon of Windsor, 
and provided with apartments in the castle, where he 
remained until his death in 1688. In the united fields 
of philosophy and scholarship, the chief interme- 


312 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


diaries of foreign influences were Henry More, Ralph 
Cudworth, and Joseph Glanvil. More devoted his 
life to expounding a system of Christian Platonism, 
derived partly from the study of Plato’s doctrines, as 
modified by the Alexandrian neo-Platonists and the 
Italian humanists, and partly from the writings of the 
Jewish cabbalists and of Tauler and other German 
mystics. He corresponded with the French meta- 
physician, Descartes, and was in partial agreement 
with his philosophical principles. Cudworth, who 
was professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, was a leading 
member of the school of Latitudinarian divines 
who generally adopted Arminian tenets. His best- 
known work, on ‘The Intellectual System of the 
Universe,” was designed as an answer to the material- 
istic theories of Hobbes, which he confuted by an 
investigation of ancient philosophical systems “in 
order to show the unity of a supreme God to have 
been a general belief of antiquity.”1 He was 
acquainted with the theories of Gassendi and 
Descartes, whose works he cites, although rarely with 
approval. Glanvil, whose chief work is known by 
the names of “The Vanity of Dogmatising” and 
‘‘Scepsis Scientifica,” which he gave to the two 
editions respectively published in 1661 and 1665, 
set himself to accomplish the emancipation of thought 
from scholastic tyranny which Bacon had inaugurated. 
He substantially accepted the system of Descartes, 
to whom he refers in terms of warm praise. 

The “Royal Society for Improving Natural Know- 


} Hallam’s ‘‘Introduction to the Literature of Europe,” 
vol. iv. p. 66. 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 313 


ledge” sprang out of the meetings of scientific 
observers held in London and Oxford during the 
Civil War, already mentioned. It was incorporated in 
April, 1662, and fostered by the patronage of Charles 
II., who inherited a measure of his father’s cultivated 
tastes, and of Prince Rupert, who was himself a 
skilful chemist. Besides a foreign secretary, Henry 
Oldenburg, a native of Bremen, it numbered foreign 
savants among its members and correspondents, and 
the discoveries of Huyghens, Torricelli, Malpighi, 
and others in astronomy, physics, physiology, &c., 
were repeatedly subjects of discussion. It cannot 
be doubted that to the active communication of 
thought which such minds as Flamstead, Halley, 
Wallis, Sydenham, Willis, Wilkins, Woodward, Ray, 
Grew, Morrison, Boyle, Hooke, and Wren, inter- 
changed with their more advanced fellow-labourers 
on the Continent, the rapid strides made by English 
science during this period are largely due. The 
greatest savant whom England has produced, Isaac 
Newton, was a student at Cambridge during the 
early years of the Royal Society, of which he did 
not become a member until 1671. The mathematical 
studies on which his future discoveries were based 
embraced the writings of Descartes upon algebraic 
geometry and mechanics, which were then in use at 
Cambridge. Thomas Sydenham, by whose observations 
and experiments medicine is held to have been first 
raised to the dignity of a science, visited the medical 
school at Montpellier before practising in London. 
The recognition of Peruvian bark, or ‘Jesuits’ 
powder,” as a specific for ague, which, although 


314 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


introduced into England in 1653, was long con- 
demned by the faculty as a quack medicine, is 
believed to be owing to his persistent employment 
and advocacy. 

In the pictorial art of this period foreign influences 
were still paramount. The most fashionable portrait- 
painter of the Restoration was Sir Peter Lely, a native 
of Westphalia, but of Dutch parentage. He came to 
this country in 1641, and, stimulated by the study 
of Vandyck, abandoned landscape and _ historical 
painting, to which he had hitherto devoted himself, 
for portraiture alone. His success induced him to 
reside here until his death in 1680. ‘The statesmen, 
wits, and beauties of the Restoration still live upon 
his canvas, The characteristics of his manner are 
too well known to require notice. Greenhill, Daven- 
port, and others are enumerated among his English 
pupils and imitators. Simon Varelst, a Dutch artist, 
who excelled as a flower-painter, but also applied 
himself to portraiture, was in high repute here during 
the reign of Charles II. William Vandevelde the 
elder and his yet more eminent son of the same 
name visited England during that reign, and, having 
been appointed marine painters to the Crown, spent 
the rest of their lives here. Many of the latter’s 
best works are to be found in our public and private 
collections. Other Dutch painters were employed at 
the same time, the most notable being Netscher, a 
pupil of Terburg, a skilful artist of small portraits, 
and Griffiere, whose artificial landscapes still find 
admirers. The statements of some writers upon art 
that Rembrandt, Teniers, and Terburg were also 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 315 


visitors here require verification. Godfrey Kneller, 
a native of Lubeck, who studied under both Dutch 
and Italian masters, but can scarcely be ranked in 
either school, came over in 1674, and rapidly attained 
success, as a portrait-painter. His reputation, how- 
ever, culminated under William III. and Anne, with 
the chief celebrities of whose reign his brush has 
familiarised us. Italian art, now in its decline, was 
represented by Antonio Verrio, a Neapolitan, who 
obtained ample employment in painting mythological 
and allegorical designs upon the ceilings and stair- 
cases of the royal palaces. 

The invention of the art of mezzotint engraving 
has been usually attributed to Prince Rupert, but 
doubts have recently been thrown upon his claim. 
He at all events introduced it into England, and by 
the success with which he cultivated it established 
its reputation. William Faithorne, the chief English 
engraver of this period, was a pupil of the French 
artist, Nanteuil, whose style, however, he considerably 
modified. He is said to have acquired from the 
same master the art of crayon-drawing, which he 
also practised. Loggan, a native of Dantzic, Bloote- 
jing and Valek, both Dutchmen, and Vanderbank, 
a native of France, but probably of Dutch extraction, 
were the principal foreign engravers employed. 

In sculpture, the only artist of distinction who was 
undoubtedly of foreign extraction was Gabriel Cibber, 
a Dane, who came to England during the Common- 
wealth and found employment under Stone until his 
merits became recognised. The statues of Melancholy 
and Raving Madness, in front of Bethlehem Hospital, 


316 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


are his best-known works. The greatest artist in 
wood of his own, or perhaps of any age, Grinling 
Gibbons, some of whose exquisite carvings belong to 
this period, according to one early account of him, 
was born in London, of Dutch parentage ; accord- 
ing to another, was the child of English parents, but 
born in Holland. The art of graving in metal was 
followed by a family of French medallists, named 
Rotier, five in number, who were employed in the 
Royal Mint, of whom John was esteemed the best 
artist. The original design, representing the Duchess 
of Richmond as Britannia, upon the reverse of a 
medal struck for Charles II., is attributed to another 
brother, Philip Rotier. 

The architecture of the Renaissance found its 
highest English representative in Sir Christopher 
Wren, and developed new dignity and _ beauty 
from the modifications which he introduced. The 
calamitous fire of London was converted into a 
national benefit by the opportunity it afforded him 
of rebuilding the principal metropolitan churches ; 
of which St. Paul’s, St. Mary-le-Bow, and St. Stephen’s, 
Walbrook, are his acknowledged masterpieces. Green- 
wich Hospital, a considerable portion of Hampton 
Court Palace, and the library of Trinity College, 
Cambridge, are among his stateliest works elsewhere. 

Music was one of the arts which Charles II. — 
patronised. His tastes in this, as in other respects, 
inclined him to French usages, and he introduced 
a violin orchestra into the Chapel Royal in imitation 
of one which performed before Louis XIV. Laniére, 
already named, held the office of Director of the 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES. oie 


King’s music for some years after the Restoration ; 
and two Frenchmen, named Cambert and Grebus, or 
Grabut, are named among his successors. Pelham 
Humphrey, who was in high esteem with the 
King as a composer of songs and anthems, was a 
pupil of Lulli, an Italian settled in France. Italian 
music also was much in vogue, and Gio. Baptista 
Draghi, a composer of some merit, was in the service 
of Queen Catherine. The experiment of introducing 
the opera upon our stage, which was tried by 
Davenant under the Commonwealth, was renewed 
after the Restoration by Thomas Killigrew, who 
collected an Italian company for the purpose. 
Evelyn, in his diary, records his being present at 
the first performance of an Italian opera, in January, 
1674. Both his diary and that of Pepys contain 
frequent references to celebrated Italian singers and 
players upon the violin, harpsichord, and other 
instruments, whose concerts they attended. 

The growth of our foreign commerce during this 
period may be measured by the progress made by the 
East India Company, whose annual exports amounted 
in 1677 toabout £430,000 and their imports to about 
4,860,000. In addition to these returns, the private 
trade carried on by the shipowners, officers, seamen, 
and factors of the Company amounted in exports to 
upwards of £120,coo and in imports to more than 
£,230,000. The annexation to England of the island 
of Bombay, in 1669, opened out fresh channels of 
profit to the Company. The loss which befel them 
in 1683 and 1687 of their factories at Bantam in 
Java and Hooghly in Bengal was compensated by 


318 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


the acquisition of a new settlement in Sumatra, which 
enabled them to retain the spice trade, and of another 
on the east bank of the Ganges, which developed 
into the city of Calcutta. The island of St. Helena, 
which had been granted to the Company by their 
charter of 1661, was afterwards wrested from them 
by the Dutch, but, having been regained in 1672, 
was confirmed in their possession. China was in- 
cluded within the scope of their enterprise in 1680. 
The prohibition of trade with France, which was 
enacted in 1678, does not appear to have worked the 
mischief it was calculated to cause, the loss of so im- 
portant a purchaser being probably counter-balanced 
by the growing demands of the American colonists. 
An extensive commerce was carried on with Turkey, 
Italy, Spain, and Portugal; and the shipping em- 
ployed by the African Company in their trade with 
Guinea amounted, together with that of the American 
trade, to 40,000 tons. 

Among the imports brought into use at this period, 
two deserve special mention. Tea was introduced 
as early at least as 1660, when Pepys records his 
having drunk it asa novelty. <A few years later he 
refers to it as being recommended to his wife by her 
medical attendant. Its consumption, however, was 
not large, and did not become fashionable until after 
the Revolution. Coffee was introduced from the 
East, under the Commonwealth, by a Turkey mer- 
chant, and soon after the Restoration came into 
vogue as a favourite beverage. The coffee-house soon 
became a place of social, literary, and eventually poli- 
tical resort, and from the middle of the reign of 


MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN INFLUENCES, 319 


Charles II. took rank as a characteristic feature of 
English life, answering in many respects to the club 
of our own day. 

The settlement of some Dutch dyers in England 
in 1666 introduced to us their process of dressing 
woollen cloths, and an improved weaving-loom was 
imported from Holland not long afterwards. Fine 
linens were manufactured at Ipswich by a company 
of French Protestants in 1669. Some Venetian glass- 
makers, who were brought over by the Duke of 
Buckingham in 1670, improved our knowledge of its 
manufacture. ‘The process of tinning plate-iron was 
introduced from Germany during the same period 
by some workmen employed by Andrew Yarranton, 
the author of an important work upon English handi- 
crafts. A Dutchman is said to have set up a mill 
at Sheen, at which wire was first made in England. 
The stimulus imparted to almost every branch of 
industry by the advent of Huguenot refugees, con- 
sequent upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 
1685, has already been noticed. 

The addition to our national sports of the game of 
‘ néle-méle,” a description of tennis, imported from 
France, which has given its name to a _ principal 
London thoroughfare, and of skating, which was first 
performed, as Evelyn records, in 1662, “after the 
manner of the Hollanders,” may be mentioned among 
the minor foreign contributions of this epoch. 

Socially, as well as politically, the term at which 
this retrospect concludes may be regarded as the 
threshold of our modern history. Widely as the 
England of the revolutionary period seems, at first 


320 POST NORMAN BRITAIN. 


sight, to differ from the England of to-day, the 
difference will be seen, upon closer inspection, to 
be of degree and not of kind. The organisation 
of political parties, the cleavage of religious sects, 
the divergent aims of statesmen and divines, the 
rivalries of commercial enterprise and industry, the 
subjects of scientific, literary, and artistic interest, 
the tastes and amusements of society, the conditions 
and habits of daily life, were substantially the same 
as they are now, and the interval of two centuries 
has done little more than develop the growth of 
the tendencies which were then in germ. 


mee D EEXe 


AFRICA, relations with, 74, 
148, 255, 318 

Almain, Hanse of, 15, 32, 55, 
146 

‘America, exploration of, 73, 
149; emigration to, 191, 209, 
247-8 

Aristotle, works of, 21, 44, 
237 

Armada, Spanish, 123 

Arminianism, 227, 312 


BACON, Francis, 145, 237 

Bacon, Roger, 21 

Baptists, 210 

Bible, translations of, 41, 63, 
141, 157, 236 

Bohme, Jacob, 229 

Brandenburg, relations with, 
259, 275, 289, 291 

Breton immigration, 10 


CALVIN, influence of, 53, 78, 
Bg,7100, 112, *141;°155, 209, 
228 

Cambridge University, 50, 55, 
77; 109, 286 

Catholics, English Roman, 
Be etO0-7112,.114,, 118,121, 
124, 156, 158, 165, 174, 179, 
207, 248, 253, 262, 267, 271, 
283 


Caxton, 43 

Charles I., 164, 169-218, 242 

Charles II., 190, 218-19, 225, 
251-79, 296 


Chaucer, 37-42 

Colonisation, 152, 247-8 
Cromwell, Oliver, 211-224 
Cromwell, Thomas, 59-67 
Crusades, influence of, 20, 24-5 


DENMARK, relations with, 169, 
173, 223 

Dryden, 276, 297, 304-311 

Dutch United Provinces, re- 
lations with, I10, 113, 120, 
125, 160, 163, 168, 173, 218, 
220, 223, 254, 257, 264-267, 
270, 275, 279, 282, 289 


EAST, the, commercial rela- 
tions with, 15, 147, 246, 317 

Edward I., wars and policy of, 
13, 26,25 

Edward III., wars and policy 
of, 14, 29-31, 35 

Elizabeth, Queen, 83-4, 89, 
92-125 

England, Reformed Church of, 
60-65, 69, 75-78, 90, 94, 100, 
III 


English language, 34, 40, 70 
Erasmus, 50 
Frastians, 228 


FLEMISH art, influence of, 71, 
142, 241, 314; immigra- 
tion, 15,31, 315, £275.319% 
industries, influence of, 15,31, 
127-130, 145, 241, 2495 319 

France, att. Of 22 4450014 3. 

Me 


322 POST 
243, 315 ; industries of,. 129, 
146, 249, 298, 319 ; literature 
Of,-22; 35-41, 70, 133, -232, 


236, 305; political relations |. 


with, 58, 93, 125, 173, 178, 
223, 254-6, 258, 261-5, 269- 
76, 280- 280 ; ; wars with, 29, 
57> 88, 95>. I8I, 270 : 

Friars, Dominican and Fran- 
ciscan, 19 


GEOGRAPHICAL discovery, 72,. 


147 

Germany, Empire of, relations 
with, 57, 79, 82, 168; in- 
ventions of, 43, 46, 319; 
literature of, 44;--71,7, 441, 
240; merchants of, 15, 32, 
146; Protestant States of, 
63, 67, 76, 161, 167; theo- 
logy of, 53, 64, 228, 312 

Gower, 36 

Greece, literature of, 21, 
50,236, 301 


43; 


HENRIETTA MARIA, Queen, 
176, 185, 190, 207 

Henry III., 8, 9 

Henry V., 30 

Henry VII.5473/72 

Henry VIII., 50, 53, 56-72 

Holbein, 72 

Huguenots, immigrations of, 
77 pI LG, S127, {260.0 208 ; 
massacres of, 98, 110; polli- 
tical relations with, 95, 98, 
106, 181, 291 


INDEPENDENTS, 209, 212 

India, relations with, 150, 246, 
250, 255, 317 

Indies, West, 221, 223, 257 

Ireland, Government of, 29, 64, 
187, 220, 284; rebellions i in, 
114, 187, 201, 207 


NORMAN BRITAIN. 


Italy, art of, 23, 71-2, 142, 243, 
315 + literature of, 39, 44, 
70; 131, 230 ; merchants of, 
32; morals and-manners of, 
132 ; priests of, 9 173 state- 
craft of, 59 


JAMES 1 102, 119,° 2r, 140, 


154 
James IT., 262, 267, 273, 277; 
279-93 - 
Jesuits, 114, 119, 121, 161, 
271, 253 
Jews, expulsion of, 16; 
admission of, 222 
Jonson, 230 


re-. 


Knox, John, 87, 90, 100 


Louis XIV., 254, 258, 268- 
277, 280, 286, 289, 207 

Luther, influence of, 53, 63, 
68, 77, 161 


MARINER’S COMPASS, 24 
Mary, Queen, 79, 81 
Mary, Queen of Scots, 92, 94, 
97, 100-104, I2I 
Merchants, foreign, 15, 32, 146 
Metaphysics, Continental, in-- 
fluence of, 22, 41, 237, 312 
Milton, 234, 239, 241, 302 
Montfort, Simon de, 12 
Muggletonians, 229 | 


NETHERLANDS, immigrations 
from, 15, 77, 105, 127; po- 
litical relations with, 31, 113, 
120. Vide Dutch and Flem- 
ish 

Nonconformists, 64, 209, 228, 
254, 256, 261, 264, 266, 277, 

~ 285 

Normandy, loss of, 7 


OPERA, Italian, 307,-317 

Orange, William, Prince of, | 
PIO TIS, 110.47 102 Wil: 
liam HI." 

Oxford University, 20, 22, 45, 


51,55) 77,112, “286 


PAPACY, aggressions of, 9, 33, 
86, 99, 103, 106, 108, 112; 
political relations with, 58, 
93, 96, 155, 170, 254, 284 

Paris, University of, 20 

Persia, relations with, 148, HG 

- Plato, works of, 44, 312 

Poitevin, immigration, 10 

- Portugal, relations with, 32, 

Sages oe 
Presbyterians, 109, 155, 193, 
201, 208, 210, 219, 221, 228, 
255» 257, 304 

Printing, invention of, 43 

Protestantism. V2de Sats gb 
tion 

Puritanism, 91, 100, ra; 155, 
168, 189, 194, 224, 248, 251 


QUAKERS, 222, 264 


REFORMATION, Protestant, 
53,69, 75, 87, 89 

Renaissance, French, 297, 301, 
395; Italian, 39; 44, 59; 131, 


233, 302, 316 
Rome, Church of, corruption 


of, 18, 34, 533 counter- 
reformation of, 86,161. Vide 
Papacy. 

Rome, literature of, 21, 37, 
239, 311 

Rubens, 242 

Russia, relations with, 147, 
247 


INDEX. 


| Spain, 


Re 


SCHOOLMEN, 22, 41 

Science, Continental, influence 
of, 237, 239, 244, 298, 313 

Scotland, immigrations from, 
49, 226; political Telations 
with, 28, AS,= 70; 04,0 Lal; 
159, 193, 201, 208, 212, 215, 
219, 277, 283 ; Reformation 
in, 87, 96, 100, 103 

Shaftesbury, Lord, 256, 26I- 
278 

Shakespeare, 134, 137 

Socinians, 229 

literary influence of, 
134, 137; 231, 304, 306, 309; 
Philip 11., king of, 82, 83, 
88, 104, 108, III; political 
relations with, 47, 82, 88, 
155, 165, 192, 259, 261 ; 
wars with, 113,179, 223 

Spenser, 133, 140 

Sweden, relations with, 173, 
185, 223, 259, 261, 289 

Switzerland, Reformation in, 


89 
TORIES, 274, 276, 289, 293 
UNITARIANS, 64, 229 


VALENCE, Aymer de, 13 
Vandyck, 241-3, 314 


WALES, Conquest of, 26 ; con- 
solidation with England, 49 


Whigs, 274, 276, 280, 2809, 
293 
William III. (Prince of 


Orange) 258, 265, 267, 269, 
275, 281, 286, 288 

Wolsey, 51, 57 

Wycliff, 22, 34, 41, 55 


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